The 2025 FIVB U18 Beach Volleyball World Championships took place in Doha from October 7 to 11, after the age limit for the global youth competition was reset from U19 to U18. Both USA’s Jordyn Scribner & Ella Grimes and Norway’s Ludvig Ringoen & Sebastian Kjemperud started their campaigns from the qualifications and powered on all the way to the top of the women’s and the men’s podiums, respectively. Another American pair, Avery Junk & Addison Junk, and Belgium’s Lente Thant & Simone Vervloet completed the girls’ podium. The boys’ silver went to Germany’s Jonathan Bungert & Filo Wust, while Italy’s Riccardo Santomassimo & Marco Di Felice snatched the bronze.
Jordyn Scribner & Ella Grimes crowned their first appearance at a world-level event with a fantastic run that brought them straight to the top of the podium. The 17-year-old American girls started their journey from the qualifiers and managed to string up as many as nine consecutive wins without dropping a single set to rejoice as world champions.
Seeded 32nd in the 32-team main draw bracket, Scribner & Grimes achieved a hard-fought 2-0 (21-19, 22-20) victory over sixth-seeded Belgians Lente Thant & Simone Vervloet in the semifinals, and followed up with a 2-0 (21-13, 24-22) victory over second-seeded compatriots Avery Junk & Addison Junk in the gold medal showdown, earning USA’s fourth gold in the history of the youth girls’ world championships.
“Since we started out in the qualification, we told ourselves that we were not going down without a fight. We pushed for every single point and I’m so happy with how it went down. We came here to win and that’s what we did,” Scribner told FIVB.com.
“Both of us worked so hard to get here. We worked so hard together, pushed for every point and I’m super glad that we won,” added Grimes.
The 17-year-old Junk twins settled for silver, while 16-year-old Vervloet and 17-year-old Thant brought home bronze, Belgium’s first ever medal in the history of the competition, after a 2-1 (21-8, 18-21, 15-8) win over Esmee Radstake & Jara Both of the Netherlands in the third-place playoff.
On the boys’ side, 16-year-old Ludvig Ringoen and 17-year-old Sebastian Kjemperud of Norway triumphed as world champions after going through the tournament in Qatar on an 9-1 win-loss record, dropping a total of three sets in the 10 games along the way from the qualifiers to the top of the podium. The 28th-seeded northern Europeans reached the final after a 2-0 (22-20, 21-17) semifinal win over Turkiye’s Baris Guldali & Polat Kemal Eser. In the gold medal showdown, Ringoen & Kjemperud took on fifth-seeded Germans Jonathan Bungert & Filo Wust, a team they had lost to both at the CEV U18 European Championship a month earlier and in their pool-stage encounter at the World Championship in Doha. However, when it mattered the most, the Norwegians battled it out for a tight 2-0 (26-24, 21-19) victory to claim their country’s first-ever gold and third medal in the history of the competition.
“We tried to enjoy ourselves and seize our moments. It was all about our attitude on court, to keep on working and showing that we really want to win no matter how bad the scoreline is,” said Kjemperud. “It’s been an amazing journey together with a lot of development. We stuck together and with the help of our coach we were able to take the grip around the gold medal match. We are really happy about that and it’s an amazing feeling to stand on top of the podium.”
The reigning U18 European champions, 17-year-old Bungert and 16-year-old Wust, settled for silver at the World Championship, while 17-year-old Italians Riccardo Santomassimo & Marco Di Felice earned bronze after a 2-0 (21-12, 21-14) sweep of the third-place match against Baris Guldali & Polat Kemal Eser.
43 girls’ teams and 44 boys’ teams representing 42 different federations took part in the 2025 FIVB U18 Beach Volleyball World Championships in Doha.
Click here for the official 2025 FIVB U18 Beach Volleyball World Championship website.
