Elite16 - Rio de Janeiro, BRA - 2026

Plavins & Fokerots win Rio to celebrate first Elite gold

French teams Daubas & Aye and Rotar & Gauthier-Rat pick up silver and bronze in Brazil

Published 02:27, 03 Aug 2026

Daubas/Aye, C. (FRA) vs. Plavins/Fokerots (LAT) - Final 1st Place #117697635

Plavins & Fokerots rejoice after the Rio Elite final

At the age of 41, Martins Plavins and his 21-year-old partner Kristians Fokerots of Latvia earned the team’s first-ever gold at the Elite level on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour. They topped the men’s podium in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday for their overall third gold and eighth medal on the Tour together.

Watch the Rio de Janeiro Elite on VBTV

Two French teams completed the podium. Remi Bassereau Daubas & Calvin Aye claimed their third Beach Pro Tour silver. They also have one bronze on the Tour as a pair.

Their compatriots Teo Rotar & Arnaud Gauthier-Rat, bronze medalists of the last FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championship, Adelaide 2025, took the bronze, their third medal on the Tour, but only the first at an Elite event.

Three-time Olympian and London 2012 Olympic bronze medalist Martins Plavins and two-time age-group world champion Kristians Fokerots, seeded second in the Rio de Janeiro Elite main draw, cruised through the tournament on a run of seven consecutive wins, dropping only one set along the way, in a pool game.

In their semifinal on Sunday, the Latvians achieved a 2-0 (21-16, 28-26) victory over 13^th-seeded Timo Hammarberg & Tim Berger of Austria. In the big final later in the day, Plavins & Fokerots mastered a 2-0 (21-17, 21-11) shutout of third-seeded Frenchmen Remi Bassereau Daubas & Calvin Aye with a match-high 19 points from Fokerots.

Daubas & Aye finished the tournament on a 5-2 win-loss record, enough to bring home silver. They put together a 2-0 (21-12, 21-16) sweep of the all-French semifinal against eighth-seeded compatriots Teo Rotar & Arnaud Gauthier-Rat.

The third-place match offered a three-set battle. Rotar & Gauthier-Rat came back from a set down against Hammarberg & Berger to celebrate a 2-1 (18-21, 21-16, 15-13) victory and snatch the bronze.