AVC Beach Volleyball Continental

Australian ladies also earn ticket to LA 2028 Olympic sand!

Aussies Nicolaidis & Carracher triumph with the men’s Asian continental crown

Published 02:01, 06 Sept 2026

Yan X./X. Y. Xia (CHN) vs. Fejes/Clancy (AUS) - Final 1st Place #123351517

Australia’s Stefanie Fejes & Taliqua Clancy rejoice after the Asian Championship final

A day after Australian men secured a berth at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games beach volleyball event, their female compatriots followed suit. On Sunday in Shangluo, Stefanie Fejes & Taliqua Clancy triumphed as continental title holders at the 2026 AVC Beach Volleyball Asian Championships and reserved the ticket to LA 2028 that came with the Asian crown. Fellow Australians Mark Nicolaidis & Izac Carracher celebrated as men’s champions.

Watch the AVC Beach Volleyball Asian Championships on the Beach Volleyball World YouTube channel

In the women’s gold medal match, the pairing of Tokyo 2020 Olympic silver medalist Clancy with Fejes took out home favorites Yan Xu & Xia Xinyi in straight sets. The second-seeded Australians persevered through a tough first set against the Chinese bracket leaders and cruised on through the second to claim a 2-0 (23-21, 21-16) victory.

View this post on Instagram

If Clancy & Fejes get to represent Australia at LA 2028, it will be the fourth Olympic appearance for Clancy and the first for Fejes. The Asian title they earned in Shangluo was Australia’s sixth and Clancy’s sixth. She had three with Louise Bawden in 2014, 2015 and 2017, and two with Mariafe Artacho del Solar in 2018 and 2019. Fejes made the continental podium for the second (consecutive) time, after taking bronze at the last edition of the Asian Championship in 2024.

Yan Xu & Xia Xinyi settled for silver, China’s 32^nd medal in the history of the competition. With different partners, Xia claimed the two most recent continental crowns, in 2023 and in 2024, as well as those in 2016 and 2020, in addition to another four podium finishes, including this one. For Yan, it was the first continental medal.

In the women’s bronze medal game earlier on Sunday, third-seeded Asami Shiba & Reika Murakami of Japan hammered out a 2-0 (21-16, 21-13) shutout of fourth-seeded Shaunna Polley & Olivia MacDonald of New Zealand. It was the first continental medal for Shiba & Murakami and brought Japan back to the podium for the first time since 2021.

View this post on Instagram

As two Australian teams had reached the men’s final in Shangluo, it was already clear that the country would earn the ticket to LA 2028. A hard-fought three-set battle between compatriots unfolded on the court during the gold medal showdown. Eventually, third-seeded Mark Nicolaidis & Izac Carracher triumphed as Asian champions after a 2-1 (17-21, 21-17, 15-12) comeback victory over fourth-seeded fellow Australians Thomas Hodges & Ben Hood.

It was the third consecutive and eighth overall continental title for Australia, but first for Nicolaidis & Carracher, who finished runners-up to compatriots D'Artagnan Potts & Jack Pearse in 2024. It was also the second continental podium for Thomas Hodges, who conquered the 2023 crown along with Zachery Schubert. Nicolaidis & Carracher, as well as Hodges represented their country at the Paris 2024 Olympics.

The men’s bronze went to top-seeded home favorites Wu Jiaxin & Zhou Chaowei. Their opponents in the third-place match – second-seeded Qatari stars Cherif Younousse & Ahmed Tijan – conceded an injury forfeit. Wu stepped on the Asian Championship podium for the third time in history, after his silver in 2020 and bronze in 2019.