Several athletes that have already tasted the triumph of age group world champions are set to go for it again at the 2025 FIVB Beach Volleyball U21 World Championships about to get underway on Wednesday, October 15, in the Mexican city of Cholula in the state of Puebla. Over 90 pairs representing 50 different federations and all five continental confederations are registered on the entry lists for the event one day before its start and are about to compete for planetary honors through Sunday, October 19, with the venting Popocatepetl volcano unveiling a spectacular backdrop for the aspiring young talents’ efforts.
Beach U21 World Championships 2025
World champions back for more as U21 World Championships set to serve off in Mexico
The event in the state of Puebla to get underway on Wednesday
Published 12:45, 15 Oct 2025
Latvia’s Kristians Fokerots in action
- Watch the 2025 FIVB U21 Beach Volleyball World Championships on the Beach Volleyball World YouTube channel
28 duos per gender are seeded directly into the 32-team main draw to get underway on Thursday. Action will start on Wednesday with three rounds of qualifications, which will fill the remaining vacancies in the pool phase. The 32 main draw pairs in each gender will be split into eight round-robin pools. The pool winners will advance straight to the eighthfinals, while the pool runners-up and the third-placed teams will have the chance to make it there through a sixteenthfinal round. Both of these direct elimination rounds and the quarterfinals are scheduled on Saturday, leaving the semifinals and the medal matches for the climax on Sunday.
The men’s entry list is headlined by Latvia’s Gustavs Auzins & Kristians Fokerots, who celebrated the U19 world title in 2022. They were also U18 European champions in 2022 and U20 European champions in 2024. With his regular Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour partner Martins Plavins, on the other hand, 20-year-old Fokerots is all the way up in position number eight on the men’s FIVB Beach Volleyball World Ranking.
Last year’s U19 world champions Jakub Krzeminski & Szymon Pietraszek of Poland are also back for more as they will try their luck at the U21 Worlds in Mexico this week. The 19-year-old Poles, however, will be starting from the qualifiers on Wednesday.
Iran’s AmirAli GhalehNovi, who picked up bronze at the 2024 U19 World Championships, will also compete in Puebla, alongside Habib Naseri.
Some other players, who have already made headlines with their achievements on the senior Beach Pro Tour, like Switzerland’s Julian Friedli, Norway’s Even Stray Aas or Brazil’s Henrique Camboim, to name a few, will also test the sand in Cholula.
Antonio Lares & Carlos Andres Ayala are one of the teams to represent the host nation at the U21 World Championships. Last year they finished fourth at the U19 World Championship. This year they have been having an excellent season on the senior NORCECA Beach Volleyball Tour collecting four medals, and just two weeks ago, they delighted the home crowd at the Veracruz Challenge with three huge upsets on the way from the qualifiers to the eighthfinals. Lares & Carlos Andres are also preparing to compete at next month’s senior FIVB World Championships in Adelaide.
Switzerland’s Leona Kernen is probably the best known name in the women’s entry list for Puebla. At the 2021 edition of the U21 World Championship, she took bronze alongside Menia Bentele, and at the 2023 edition, she upgraded to silver with Annique Niederhauser as her teammate. Now Kernen will try to upgrade once more as she arrives in Mexico with Muriel Bossart, with whom she collected two golds and one silver from age-group European Championships. Kernen was picked by Paris 2024 Olympic bronze medalist Tanja Huberli to replace Nina Brunner as a teammate and, after some successful appearances on the Beach Pro Tour, they are heading together to Adelaide 2025 next month.
The women’s tournament in Puebla will also feature some U19 World Championship medalists. 2024 runner-up Sofia Izuzquiza of Spain will compete alongside Adriana Serrano, while USA’s Sally Perez & Sarah Wood, who won bronze that same year, will both play in Mexico, but with new partners - Avery Jackson and Zoey Henson, respectively. Meanwhile, 2022 bronze medalist Ruby Sorra of Canada will try to add to her medal collection, this time with Ofure Odigie as a partner.
Czech twins Anna Pavelkova & Katerina Pavelkova, who have collected four medals at age-group European Championships, including two golds, and have already medaled three times on the Beach Pro Tour this season alone, are another important team to watch in the upcoming women’s competition. So are 2024 U18 European champions and two-time continental U20 bronze medalists Lia Berger & Lilli Hohenauer of Austria, and two-time continental age-group bronze medalists Saofe Duval & Romane Sobezalz of France.
Poland’s Julia Radelczuk, who won the U20 European crown in August of this year, will shoot for the U21 world crown, but with a different partner - Natalia Okla.
This will be the 20th edition of the junior World Championships in beach volleyball. The first one was held back in 2001 in France. Mexico is hosting the competition for the first time. Overall, it is the third edition to be held on NORCECA territory, after Canada welcomed the tournament twice, in 2011 and in 2012.
Brazil leads the medal counts for both genders, with nine women’s and seven men’s titles. The reigning Olympic champions in both genders – Sweden’s David Ahman & Jonatan Hellvig and Brazil’s Ana Patricia Ramos & Eduarda Santos Lisboa (Duda) – have triumphed as U21 world champions along their glorious beach volleyball journeys. The list of past winners includes many more highly recognizable names in the world of beach volleyball like Brazilians Taiana Lima, Juliana Silva, Carol Solberg, Barbara Seixas, Pedro Solberg, Bruno Schmidt, Gustavo Carvalhaes (Guto), George Wanderley and Arthur Mariano Lanci, Swiss Nina Brunner, Joana Heidrich and Anouk Verge-Depre, Poles Bartosz Losiak, Piotr Kantor and Michal Bryl, Spaniards Raul Mesa and Pablo Herrera, Latvians Martins Plavins and Aleksandrs Samoilovs, as well as Italy’s Paolo Nicolai, Netherlands’ Marleen Van Iersel, Canada’s Samuel Schachter, Ukraine’s Sergiy Popov, and many others.
