Nils Ehlers & Lui Wust win Hamburg Elite; first Beach Pro Tour gold for Wust
Ehlers & Wust and Brunner & Huberli conquer Hamburg Elite gold with Empowerment – FIVB
FIVB Volleyball Empowerment beneficiaries swept the entire men’s podium and claimed the women’s gold and silver medals at the Hamburg Elite on the Beach Pro Tour. Germany’s Nils Ehlers & Lui Wust and Switzerland’s Nina Brunner & Tanja Huberli triumphed as champions, Norway’s Anders Mol & Christian Sorum and Latvia’s Tina Graudina & Anastasija Samoilova took the silver medals, while Martins Plavins & Kristians Fokerots, also of Latvia, picked up bronze. Carol Solberg & Rebecca Cavalcante of Brazil completed the women’s podium.
The German Volleyball Federation’s beach volleyball department has been allocated a total of USD 168,000 in coach support from FIVB Volleyball Empowerment. Their national pairs are training under the supervision of former European champion and two-time Olympian Christoph Dieckmann, while Fabian Tobias has been hired in the role of National Coach for Science. Swiss Volley’s beach volleyball department has so far been granted USD 336,000 in coach support from FIVB Volleyball Empowerment. Thanks to that funding, their women’s national teams are working under the instruction of Polish coach Damian Wojtasik. Norges Volleyballforbund, the Norwegian national federation, has so far been funded with a total of USD 252,000 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 Volleyball Federation of Latvia has so received a total of USD 210,000 in coach support for their national teams in beach volleyball from FIVB Volleyball Empowerment, in addition to USD 5,500 in beach volleyball equipment. Their duos are working under the guidance of coaches Genadijs Samoilovs and Daniel Rodriguez Wood.
Paris 2024 Olympic silver medalist Nils Ehlers celebrated his first ever Beach Pro Tour gold, but not with his regular partner Clemens Wickler, currently sidelined with a shoulder injury. Teamed up with Lui Wust, Ehlers conquered the Hamburg Elite title. It was the first Beach Pro Tour gold for Wust as well. At only their third Tour appearance as a pair, Ehlers & Wust picked up their first Elite and overall second medal, after the bronze at the Shangluo Challenge in July.
After suffering their only loss in the seven matches played in Hamburg – in a Pool C match against Mol & Sorum – 11th-seeded Ehlers & Wust finished pool runners-up, but then got back on the winning track all the way to the top of the podium. In the semifinals, the German duo came back from a set down against Plavins & Fokerots to celebrate a 2-1 (16-21, 21-19, 15-12) victory. In the gold medal showdown, they met mighty Mol & Sorum again and delighted the home fans with a sweet 2-0 (22-20, 21-9) revenge.
Reigning European champions Mol & Sorum, Tokyo 2020 Olympic champions and Paris 2024 Olympic bronze medalists, settled for silver. It was their first appearance on the Beach Pro Tour in over three months. The Beachvolley Vikings now enriched the duo’s impressive medal collection from the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour and the Beach Pro Tour combined to 28 golds, eight silvers and seven bronzes. Third-seeded Mol & Sorum reached the Hamburg final undefeated, on a five-match winning streak crowned with a nail-biting 2-1 (16-21, 24-22, 19-17) comeback against 10th-seeded Steven van de Velde & Yorick de Groot of the Netherlands.
41-year-old Plavins and his 21-year-old partner Fokerots, who won gold at the Rio de Janeiro Elite the previous week, earned the team’s fourth medal of the 2026 season. With the Hamburg bronze, their Beach Pro Tour showcase now features three gold, one silver and five bronze medals together. An injury forced Van de Velde & De Groot to withdraw from the third-place game, so the bronze went to fifth-seeded Plavins & Fokerots, who also suffered only one setback throughout the tournament, against the German champions-to-be in the semifinals.
Paris 2024 Olympic bronze medalists Nina Brunner & Tanja Huberli of Switzerland topped the women’s podium at the Hamburg Elite on Sunday to celebrate the team’s first gold since Brunner returned from her 2025 break. The duo’s previous gold was earned at the same venue in Hamburg two years ago. Their Beach Pro Tour hardware collection now features three gold, three silver and three bronze medals. In Germany, sixth-seeded Brunner & Huberli finished Pool C runners-up after losing to Tina & Anastasija one of their matches in the pool, but that was the Swiss team’s only setback of the tournament. They won all the other six matches they played in Hamburg. In Sunday’s semifinals, they mastered a 2-0 (21-8, 21-18) shutout of fifth-seeded Italians Valentina Gottardi & Reka Orsi Toth, and in the final, they got back at the рeigning world champions from Latvia with a 2-0 (21-19, 21-18) victory.
Tina & Anastasija brought home the Hamburg Elite silver, their sixth on the Beach Pro Tour so far. They also have three gold and four bronze medals in their showcase. The third-seeded Latvians reached the final undefeated. In their semifinal, the two-time Olympians came back from a set down to mount a hard-fought 2-1 (16-21, 25-23, 15-11) victory over second-seeded Carol & Rebecca.
The current world’s number one team and bronze medalists of the Adelaide 2025 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championship Carol & Rebecca claimed the bronze, their first ever on the Tour. They also have four gold and two silver medals together. The Brazilian heavyweights bounced back from their only loss of the tournament in the semifinals with a tough 2-1 (30-28, 11-21, 15-12) win over Gottardi & Orsi Toth in the bronze medal game.
A total of 28 men’s and 28 women’s pairs from 19 different countries took part in the Hamburg Elite.
The next Elite stop on the Beach Pro Tour will take place in Montreal, Canada from August 19 to 23.
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