Australia will take on the world at home when Adelaide hosts the 2025 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships. It will be the first time the event is held on Australian soil, giving fans the chance to see the country’s top players compete against the world’s best.
The tournament will take place from 14 to 23 November at The Drive and Pinky Flat, marking the first time the World Championships will be staged in the Oceania region. A total of 96 teams, composed of 48 men’s and 48 women’s pairs, will compete for the title in what promises to be a milestone moment for the sport in Australia.
The occasion comes at a time of constant growth for Australian beach volleyball. The national programme has gained momentum through the FIVB Volleyball Empowerment Programme, which has helped strengthen the country’s technical base and enhance its long-term structure. With support extending to coaching, planning and player development, the programme has provided the consistency required to compete at the highest level.
Adelaide has been central to this rise. The city serves as the national training base, where athletes and coaches work together year-round. Over the years, it has hosted training camps, performance assessments and international preparation blocks that have shaped Australia’s beach volleyball teams. This November, it will welcome the world to the same location where Australia’s elite athletes train daily.
Jasmine Fleming and Stefanie Fejes celebrates a point.
Volleyball Australia have received more than USD 378,000 in Empowerment funding since 2019. The support has provided full-time technical mentorship and leadership positions for both the men’s and women’s national teams and ensured continuity across all areas of performance. It has also strengthened the connection between national and state-level programmes, aligning the pathway that develops athletes for international competition.
That men’s programme is led by Michael Suter and Brad Tutton, who leads women’s programme. Their Empowerment-supported roles focus on coaching alignment, performance planning and athlete development. Under their guidance, the structure in Adelaide has evolved into a complete high-performance environment capable of producing world-class teams.
Australia will showcase that depth at the World Championships. Olympic silver medallist Taliqua Clancy will headline the women’s contingent in a new partnership with Jana Milutinovic, joining Lizzie Alchin and Georgia Johnson, Stefie Fejes and Jasmine Fleming, and Tara Phillips and Kayla Mears, who all progressed through Volleyball Australia’s national pathway.
The men’s squad features Olympians Mark Nicolaidis and Izac Carracher, alongside Paul Burnett and Thomas Hodges, Luke Ryan and Zachery Schubert, and South Australian duo Jack Pearse and D’Artagnan Potts, who will compete on familiar ground before home supporters.
Taliqua Clancy said the experience of competing on home soil will be unlike any other, reflecting on how special it will be to play in front of local fans and in a city that has become an integral part of the national programme.
“It’s extremely exciting to finally have a World Champs in my home country and in Adelaide, where one of our training facilities is,” she said. “It’s honestly going to be that home advantage is something we only hear about, so it’ll be really nice to actually finally experience it.”
She spoke about the support that has shaped the team’s preparations. The Empowerment programme, she said, has given Australia’s athletes and coaches the stability to train, improve and stay connected to a shared vision for success.
“The Empowerment programme is extremely helpful,” she said. “I think it’s really important that the coaches get the same equal development. So, it’s such a great programme to help encourage, and I think it helps keep other athletes in the sport as well and to teach them coaching as well. But also to have their growth as well, and other coaches who want to go down that pathway.”
Tokyo 2020 silver medallist Taliqua Clancy is the most experienced player for the Australian team.
Clancy also described how access to full-time technical staff has helped the players maintain their level throughout the season. The continuous presence of coaches, she said, has made a real difference in the team’s performance and approach to competition.
“The Empowerment programme is extremely helpful that we actually have the ability to have full-time coaches with us, which is extremely important. That’s how you get to the top. That’s high-performance sport. And that’s why just having that support, it allows the coaches to always be on the ground with us and keep developing, and that’s what gets the results at the highest tournament on our calendar.”
She said the Empowerment support is not only helping Australia prepare for the World Championships but is also building the foundation for long-term results.
“It’s extremely important and we definitely always aiming for results. That’s always the way it is,” she said. “But I think the important part too of the Empowerment programme and seeing what we first can develop at World Champs this year is also every four years is the Olympics. And I think that’s a really good start of that development of where we actually also want to be. You want to win World Champs, and you also want to win gold medals at the Olympics. So, you know, it’s not just about the short-term success of this programme. It actually is that long-term success as well.”
The upcoming World Championships in Adelaide will be the clearest display yet of how Empowerment has supported Australia’s progress. With strong leadership, a structured pathway and teams united by shared preparation, the host nation will step onto the court ready to measure their growth against the best in the world.
