# Global Position Analysis during Official Elite Female Beach Volleyball Competition: A Pilot Study
## 1 Introduction  
The popularity of beach volleyball (BV) has increased. As a result, researchers have been conducting research on the factors that affect athletes' performance and match outcomes. Previously, some important studies have contributed to the increase in the knowledge of the physiological response [1, 2], technical and tactical aspects [3], training load [4, 5, 6], and match analysis of BV [7, 8, 9]. Most of the findings revealed that BV is performed intermittently, with brief bouts of high-intensity exercise interspersed by low-intensity periods [10]. Understanding the contributions of power output, environment, skill, and subjective scoring to the variability of athletic performance should us help to identify and define strategies for performance enhancement [11]. A BV competition involves several matches in the same day and the following days (varying from four to eight matches), which increases the need to characterize various efforts during each game, as well as the ability to recover from fatigue between games [12, 13]. According to [PERSON] et al. [10], a BV match induces a temporary reduction in lower limb strength and sprinting time. A decrease in knee extensor and flexor muscles (maximal isometric voluntary contraction) at 0 h (~19% and17%, respective-ly) was also reported, but after 3 h these values had already returned to the baseline. Although this information is important as several matches take place in the same day, it appears essential to measure the density and intensity of explosive movements during the match and analyze how their performance varies alongside it. The Global Positioning System (GPS), and associated technology (GPS technology), can be useful for the quantification and characterization of the type, duration, and frequency of discrete movements, resulting in a dynamic profile of BV match play [14; 15]. Moreover, GPS data may help to detect fatigue during matches, identify periods of the most intense play, define different activity profiles based on position (Blocker or Defender) that are associated with game-specific tasks, and tactical or strategic information [14]. However, only a few studies have employed GPS technology to characterize the movement pat-terns of elite BV match play [9; 16; 17]. The pilot study of [PERSON] et al. [17], revealed an average distance of 1800 m per match (three sets), performed intermittently, at high intensity (effort was above 85% of maximal heart rate for most of the duration). These results were confirmed by [PERSON] et al. [9], who followed an Olympic female BV team over 99 national and international games and found that these players per-formed most of the total distance covered during match play (\(\sim\)85%) at low-speed (i.e., walking and jogging) and used low acceleration and deceleration movements (<2 m.s\({}^{-2}\)). However, almost more than 55% of the time was spent with a heart rate that was over 80% of the maximal heart rate. One study [18] found significant differences between Blockers and Defenders in terms of the number of jumps performed, despite no reference to the height being made. More recently, [PERSON] et al. [16], highlighted the differences in the external load of female BV players according to their age, score margin, and set-to-set variations. These researchers demonstrated that adult BV players covered a greater relative distance in zones of higher intensity compared to youth athletes. Moreover, sets that were decided by smaller score margins (<6-point score differential) demanded a greater relative distance, peak speed, greater mean acceleration, and deceleration output, as well as a greater relative distance in speed zones one and three compared to sets decided by larger score margins (>5-point score differential). These studies analyzed important variables concerned with the characterization of female BV match play. However, only [PERSON] et al.