Three of the six medals at last week’s AVC U18 Beach Volleyball Asian Championships went to teams representing FIVB Volleyball Empowerment supported federations. Australia’s Ryan Edgar & Thomas Turner (pictured in the main photo; source: asianvolleyball.net) topped the men’s podium, while Qatar’s Musa Alkeer & Mubarak Musa Thiik Madut took bronze. Another Australian duo – Ava Gaborit & Jorja Grocott – earned women’s silver. The men’s silver was claimed by Kazakhstan’s Orazali Sagynysh & Alikhan Agabek, while China’s Qi Siyu & Zhuang Ming with gold and Kazakhstan’s Gayana Galash & Merey Kozhakhmet with bronze completed the women’s podium. The event in Tashkent, Uzbekistan served as a qualifier for this summer’s 2026 FIVB U18 Beach Volleyball World Championships in the Hague, with the top five teams in each gender earning quota for their countries.
Volleyball Australia’s beach volleyball department has so far been granted a total of USD 546,000 worth of FIVB Volleyball Empowerment coach support for their national teams on the sand. Michael Suter, Max Roiuk and Joey Yigit are in charge of the men’s pairs, while Brad Tutton coaches the women’s duos. Qatar Volleyball Association’s beach volleyball department has been allocated a total of USD 294,000 in FIVB Volleyball Empowerment coach support for their national beach volleyball pairs, in addition to USD 23,000 in beach volleyball equipment. Qatar’s men’s duos are working under the guidance of Argentinean coach Pablo Bernardi.
Australia’s Ryan Edgar & Thomas Turner cruised through the men’s championship undefeated in six matches played. They lost their only set of the tournament in the 2-1 (19-21, 21-9, 15-10) semifinal against fellow Australians Lincoln Mowen & Hudson Symes. In the gold medal showdown, Edgar & Turner mastered a 2-0 (21-16, 21-13) shutout of Kazakhstan’s Orazali Sagynysh & Alikhan Agabek.
Qatar’s Musa Alkeer & Mubarak Musa Thiik Madut did not drop any sets on the way to the last four either. After a 2-1 (21-19, 19-21, 15-13) loss to Sagynysh & Agabek in the semifinals, Alkeer & Mubarak recovered with a narrow 2-0 (21-19, 24-22) victory over Mowen & Symes to bring home bronze.
In addition to the three U18 World Championship quota claimed by Australia, Kazakhstan and Qatar, Thailand and Iran also booked berths at the event in the Netherlands.
On the women’s side, Australia’s Ava Gaborit & Jorja Grocott stormed the tournament on a run of four straight-set victories, which led them to the semifinals. They went on to deliver a 2-1 (23-21, 12-21, 15-13) comeback win over Kazakhstan’s Gayana Galash & Merey Kozhakhmet to secure at least a silver medal finish. In the final showdown, Gaborit & Grocott were the only ones, who managed to push China’s Qi Siyu & Zhuang Ming to three sets in the competition.
Qi & Zhuang crowned an impeccable streak of five straight-set wins with a 2-0 (21-18, 21-14) sweep of their semifinal against Japan’s Ririka Imai & Koharu Sano, and followed up with a 2-1 (21-15, 20-22, 15-8) victory over the Australian team in the gold medal match to triumph as continental champions.
Galash & Kozhakhmet pocketed the bronze after a 2-0 (21-14, 21-15) shutout of Imai & Sano in the third-placed playoff, as both teams, along with fifth-placed Thailand, reserved tickets to the Hague.
25 men’s and 23 women’s duos representing 15 different federations took part in the AVC U18 Beach Volleyball Asian Championships.
