Five of the six medals at last week’s Jurmala Futures on the Beach Pro Tour were taken by teams from FIVB Volleyball Empowerment beneficiaries France, Latvia and Estonia. France’s Anouk Dupin (pictured in the main photo) is on a roll this season! She has made the podium at every single Beach Pro Tour event she has attended so far this year. And Sunday’s gold at the Jurmala Futures in Latvia was her fourth consecutive medal, as well as second in a row with Marine Kinna as a partner. Two Estonian pairs – Eva Liisa Kuivonen & Liisa-Lotta Jurgenson and Liisa Remmelg & Heleene Hollas – completed the women’s podium in Jurmala, while the men’s tournament featured an all-Baltic podium, with Martins Plavins & Kristians Fokerots and Aleksandrs Samoilovs & Gustavs Auzins pleasing the home crowd in Latvia with gold and silver. Lithuania’s Audrius Knasas & Povilas Piesina claimed bronze.
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 Estonian Volleyball Federation’s beach volleyball department has so far been funded with USD 168,000 in FIVB Volleyball Empowerment coach support for their national teams, currently working under the supervision of Olympian Rivo Vesik. Estonia’s beach volleyball has also received USD 11,500 in beach volleyball equipment.
22-year-old Dupin started the season with a Valencia Futures gold along with Saofe Duval. Then, she took Madrid silver with Alex Merle and a Battipaglia bronze with Marine Kinna. Competing alongside Kinna again in Jurmala last week, she moved back up the ladder to another gold, or her fifth overall Beach Pro Tour medal, also counting the 2023 Lille Futures bronze she picked up with Ophelie Lusson. For Kinna, on the other hand, the two medal results she achieved with Dupin put her on the first two Beach Pro Tour podiums of her career. To reach the Jurmala final, the fourth-seeded French pair went on a perfect run of five straight-set wins in a row, crowned with a 2-0 (21-11, 21-17) sweep of the semifinal against second-seeded Remmelg & Hollas. In the gold medal showdown, Dupin & Kinna allowed their first set loss of the tournament, but still managed to celebrate a 2-1 (21-18, 16-21, 15-9) victory over Kuivonen & Jurgenson.
The 22-year-old Estonians, seeded seventh, also reached the final undefeated in five matches. In the semis, Kuivonen & Jurgenson produced a 2-1 (21-15, 20-22, 15-12) victory over 14th-seeded Latvians Varvara Brailko & Anete Namike to secure their second Beach Pro Tour medal, after last year’s Spiez Futures bronze.
Remmelg & Hollas mastered a 2-0 (21-13, 21-16) sweep of the third-place game against Brailko & Namike and collected their seventh Beach Pro Tour medal and the first bronze, after five silvers and one gold.
The Volleyball Federation of Latvia has so far been granted a total of USD 210,000 in FIVB Volleyball Empowerment coach support for their national teams in beach volleyball, in addition to USD 5,500 in beach volleyball equipment.
40-year-old three-time Olympian and London 2012 bronze medalist Martins Plavins and his 20-year-old partner Kristians Fokerots, a 2022 U19 world champion, lived up to their top-seed status and dominated the tournament without any set damages in six matches played. In their last two matches, Plavins & Fokerots defeated sixth-seeded Lithuanians Arnas Rumsevicius & Karolis Palubinskas by 2-0 (21-16, 21-14) in the semifinals, and 14th-seeded compatriots Aleksandrs Samoilovs & Gustavs Auzins by a tight 2-0 (25-23, 21-19) in the final. This gold was the fourth Beach Pro Tour medal for the reigning European champions as a duo. It was their second gold, after the 2023 Warsaw Futures triumph, as well as their first podium in 2025. The team’s medal collection also includes a 2024 Rio de Janeiro Elite16 bronze. Plavins & Fokertots are training under the guidance of coach Genadijs Samoilovs.
Fokerots’ usual age-group competition partner, 20-year-old Gustavs Auzins, also a 2022 U19 world champion, and 40-year-old three-time Olympian Aleksandrs Samoilovs took silver at their Beach Pro Tour debut together. They decorated their five-match winning streak on the way to the Jurmala final with a 2-0 (21-19, 21-16) sweep of their semifinal against fifth-seeded Audrius Knasas & Povilas Piesina.
In an all-Lithuanian third-place match, Knasas & Piesina hammered out a 2-0 (21-11, 21-9) shutout of Rumsevicius & Palubinskas to celebrate their first Beach Pro Tour podium as a pair.
31 women’s and 32 men’s teams representing 22 different national federations took part in the Jurmala Futures.
Four Futures events will take place this week, from June 19 to 22 – in Qidong, China, in Ios, Greece, in Messina, Italy and a men’s tournament in Geneva, Switzerland.
