The Latvian Volleyball Federation has earned the opportunity to organize next year’s European U20 Championship, which is scheduled to take place in the country’s capital from August 10 to 13. Important international competitions in beach volleyball have been regularly held in Latvia for many years – this great tradition will continue in 2023, the Latvian Volleyball Federation (LVF) emphasizes in a statement.
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Last summer, Latvian youth beach volleyball had impressive success in international matches. Kristians Fokerots/Gustavs Auziņš won the U18 European gold and the U19 world gold, Dāvis Teteris/Oliver Bulgachs won the U19 world silver, Kristians Fokerots/Artūrs Rinkevičs won the U22 European silver, and Daniela Konstantinova/Līva Eber became the U20 European vice-champions. All mentioned medalists, except Rinkeviča, are old enough to qualify for next year’s home European U20 Championship.
“When we won the first and second place in the world U19 championship, we set the goal of holding the European U20 championship,” reveals the general secretary of the Latvian Volleyball Federation Arnis Tunte. “We have world U19 champions and vice-champions. If the U20 championship took place outside Latvia, then the world U19 vice-champions would not be able to play, because there would be only one quota. But at that age, we have about three more couples who could easily be there. The home team has three quotas, that’s why we actively started working to find an opportunity to organize the tournament. We had to act in favor of our athletes.”
Four countries applied for the organization of this competition, and in the end the European Volleyball Confederation decided in favor of Latvia. “We will try to implement so that one of the championships takes place regularly in Latvia,” says Tunte. “The level of young people is high enough for us, and the championship opens up new opportunities.”
In the previous two domestic championships, Latvian beach volleyball was rewarded with medals. In 2015, Tīna Graudiņa and Paula Nechiporukas won the European U18 Championship held in Riga. In 2018, at the European U22 Championship held in Jurmala, Mihails Samoilovs and Kristaps Šmits won the first place, while Tīna Graudiņa and Anastasia Samoilova (then Kravchenok) were the second best.
The 2023 championship will be held in the territory of “Merks” (roughly in the area of Skanstes Street), where a new and permanent beach volleyball stadium will be built. Riga is the only city in Latvia with several beach volleyball halls where young athletes train – so it is logical that the volleyball federation also tries to create a more favorable environment in cooperation with Riga.
The budget of the European U20 Championship is approximately 250 thousand euros. An intensive process of attracting funding is currently underway.
