Duos from FIVB Volleyball Empowerment supported federations picked up as many as five medals at last week’s CEV Beach Volleyball European Championships in Dusseldorf, Germany. Champions Maryna Hladun & Tetiana Lazarenko of Ukraine, runners-up Clemence Vieira & Aline Chamereau of France and bronze medalists Svenja Muller & Cinja Tillmann of Germany occupied the women’s podium. Anders Mol & Christian Sоrum of Norway and Alexander Brouwer & Steven van de Velde of the Netherlands claimed gold and bronze in the men’s tournament, leaving the silver to Sweden’s David Аhman & Jonatan Hellvig.
The FIVB Volleyball Empowerment program has been supporting the Ukraine Volleyball Federation in continuing its volleyball and beach volleyball activities since 2022 as part of an ongoing Memorandum of Understanding, which has so far provided total funding of USD 670,000. France’s beach volleyball department has been allocated coach support funding from FIVB Volleyball Empowerment totaling USD 1,077,000 so far. Their women’s national duos are working under the guidance of Youssef Krou. The Federation Francaise de Volleyball has also received USD 5,500 in beach volleyball equipment. The German Volleyball Federation’s beach volleyball department has been granted a total of USD 168,000 in FIVB Volleyball Empowerment coach support and their national pairs are training under the supervision of former European champion and two-time Olympian Christoph Dieckmann.
Seventh-seeded Maryna Hladun & Tetiana Lazarenko went through the women’s tournament undefeated. They won all six of their matches and brought home to Ukraine the country’s first ever EuroBeachVolley title in either gender. In the semifinals, Hladun & Lazarenko came back from a set down against Spanish Olympians Daniela Alvarez & Tania Moreno to earn a 2-1 (15-21, 21-16, 15-11) victory, and in Sunday’s gold medal showdown (pictured in the main photo; source: cev.eu), they repeated their exploit against fifth-seeded French Olympians Clemence Vieira & Aline Chamereau and squeezed out a nail-biting 2-1 (21-23, 21-18, 16-14) comeback.
Vieira & Chamereau also reached the final unbeaten. They crowned their five-match winning streak with a 2-0 (21-13, 21-16) sweep of their semifinal against the former world’s number one team of defending European champions Svenja Muller & Cinja Tillmann to secure France’s second medal in the history of the women’s European Championships, after the first silver from 26 years ago.
Bouncing back from their first loss of the tournament, the eighth-seeded Germans put together a 2-0 (21-18, 21-19) win over Alvarez & Moreno to take the bronze, the team’s second piece of EuroBeachVolley hardware.
Norges Volleyballforbund, the Norwegian national federation, has so far been allocated a total of USD 232,000 in FIVB Volleyball Empowerment coach support for their national beach volleyball teams, with Jetmund Bernsten in charge of the men’s duos. In addition, a USD 6,000 for a national team coaches development knowledge transfer program was granted. The Netherlands Volleyball Federation (Nevobo) has so far been funded with a total of USD 217,600 in national beach volleyball teams coach support from FIVB Volleyball Empowerment. Their men’s pairs are trained by coach Michiel van der Kuip, a 1995 European champion as a player, and his staff.
Norway’s Anders Mol & Christian Sоrum picked up their fifth European title, but the first in four years. The world’s number one team and Olympic gold medalists at Tokyo 2020 and bronze medalists at Paris 2024 returned to the continental throne with six wins in six matches in Dusseldorf, dropping only two sets along the way. One of them was in the grand finale against reigning Olympic champions and two-time European champions David Аhman & Jonatan Hellvig of Sweden. In this all-Scandinavian classic, the top-seeded Beachvolley Vikings claimed a 2-1 (17-21, 21-16, 15-11) comeback victory over the second-seeded Swedish Jump-setters.
In the semifinals, Mol & Sorum achieved a 2-0 (21-17, 21-11) win over Netherlands’ Alexander Brouwer & Steven van de Velde, seeded 18th, while Ahman & Hellvig put together a tight 2-0 (27-25, 21-17) victory over another Dutch pair, 11th-seeded Stefan Boermans & Yorick de Groot.
In an all-Dutch duel for the third place, Brouwer & Van de Velde outpaced Boermans & De Groot to snatch a 2-1 (11-21, 26-24, 15-13) comeback win and make the podium.
32 women’s and 32 men’s teams representing a total of 19 different federations took part in EuroBeachVolley 2025.
