The Women's beach volleyball event at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, was held at the Olympic Beach Volleyball Centre located at the Faliro Coastal Zone Olympic Complex. The gold medal went to Kerri Walsh and Misty May who had a perfect record in the tournament, losing not a single set. The reigning champions from the 2000 Olympics, Natalie Cook and Kerri Ann Pottharst, both had new partners for Athens and coincidentally met at the last sixteen stage where Cook's team took the honours. Adriana Behar and Shelda Bede repeated their 2000 Olympic result, taking silver.
Contents
Pool play
The 24 competing teams were split equally into six pools of four, and each team played each of the other teams in their pool a best of three set match (so that the number of pool matches, P, played by each team was 3).
The teams in each pool were ranked first through fourth based on the number of matches won, W. In the event of a two-way tie, the winning team in the head-to-head match finished ahead. In a three-team tie, the total number of points each team won and lost during all matches involving only the three tied teams were added up, and the bottom-ranked team of the three was decided by the points for to points against ratio; the other two teams were then ranked according to the outcome of the head-to-head match. The top two teams from each pool and the four best third placed teams (based on: first, matches won; second (in the event of a tie), set ratio SF/SA; and third (if there is still a tie), points ratio PF/PA) progressed through to the round of sixteen (single elimination tournament).
Two points (Pts) were awarded for each match win (W) and one point was given for each loss (L).
In individual matches, all winners are shown in bold.
In group tables, advancing teams are highlighted.
Pool A
August 15
August 17
August 19
Pool B
August 15
August 17
August 19
Pool C
August 15
August 17
August 19
Pool D
August 14
August 16
August 18
Pool E
August 14
August 16
August 18
Pool F
August 14
August 16
August 18
Round of 16
August 20
August 21
Quarter-Finals
August 22
Semi-Finals
August 23
Bronze medal match
August 24
Gold Medal match
August 24