Beach U19 World Championships 2022

Fokerots & Auzins win all-Latvian final to claim U19 world crown

Fellow Latvians Bulgacs & Teteris and France’s Canet & Rotar complete the podium

Published 03:38, 18 Sept 2022

BVBU192022 Gold MAtch - Men - LATvsLAT_20

Fokerots & Auzins celebrate upon winning the final

Kristians Fokerots and Gustavs Auzins are the new U19 world champions. The 17-year-olds won Sunday’s all-Latvian men’s final of the FIVB Beach Volleyball U19 World Championship 2022 in Dikili, Türkiye to add the world crown to the European U18 title they claimed just two weeks ago in neighbouring Greece. It was Latvia’s first gold medal in the 20-year history of the competition. Previously, the Baltic country had won two bronzes, in 2004 and 2016.

FIVB Beach Volleyball U19 World Championship 2022: All results

The silver medals went to 18-year-old Latvians Olivers Bulgacs and Davis Teteris, who made it all the way from the first qualification round to the big final of the tournament in Dikili to rejoice with their first international podium.

Defending 2021 champions Arthur Canet and Teo Rotar of France settled for bronze, their country’s second U19 world medal, after the gold the same pair snatched last year in Thailand. Earlier this year, Canet and Rotar also took a U20 European Championship silver in nearby Izmir and a Montpellier Futures silver on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour.

The U19 World Championship men’s podium in Dilikli

Fokerots and Auzins started their campaign by winning all three of their Pool B matches. In the decider for the first place in the pool standings, the Latvians managed a narrow 2-1 (29-22, 21-15, 22-20) upset of reigning champs Canet and Rotar. In the direct elimination phase of the tournament, Fokerots and Auzins knocked out Martin Etcheberry and Maximiliano Cordova de Halleux of Chile in straight sets and Timo Hammarberg and Tim Berger of Austria in three sets to reach Sunday’s final four.

The aspiring Latvians went on to claim a 2-1 (21-17, 20-22, 15-11) victory in their semifinal against Italy’s Andrea Armellini and Raoul Acerbi, before shutting out compatriots Bulgacs and Teteris by 2-0 (21-16, 21-17) for the gold.

Bulgacs and Teteris, on the other hand, won as many as nine consecutive matches in Dikili before finally succumbing to Fokerots and Auzins in the final to console with silver. The 18-year-old Latvians persevered through three qualification matches on Wednesday, winning two of them in tie-breaker sets, to advance to the main draw. Then they cruised through three Pool A games without dropping a single set, overcame Czechia’s Krystof Jan Oliva and David Westphal in the round of 16 after an extended tie-breaker, swept Poland’s Aleksander Czachorowski and Filip Lejawa in the quarterfinals, and dethroned Canet and Rotar with a 2-1 (21-12, 14-21, 15-7) semifinal win.

After finishing Pool B runners-up to champions-to-be Fokerots and Auzins, Canet and Rotar cruised through the first three knockout rounds without losing any sets. They shut out Türkiye’s Sacit Kurt and Ahmet Can Tur in the round of 24, Sweden’s Jacob Holting Nilsson and Erik Ask in the round of 16, and Brazil’s Pedro Sousa and Henrique Camboim in the quarterfinals. After losing their semifinal to Bulgacs and Teteris, the French pair recovered with a 2-0 (21-16, 22-20) victory over Armellini and Acerbi in the bronze medal match.