Porto, Portugal, July 28, 2014 - Some of last year’s medal winners will return this week to the 13th edition of the FIVB Beach Volleyball U19 World Championships in Porto. The Portuguese city is staging the age group event for the second year in a row.
In the women’s competition Brazil’s 15-year old Eduarda Santos Lisboa will try to defend the U19 title she won last year with Taina Silva Bigi, but with a different partner: Andressa Cavalcanti Ramalho.
Also competing in Porto is Tia Miric. The 17-year old Canadian won the U21 world title in Larnaka on Sunday with Sophie Bukovec. In Portugal she will play with Alexandra Poletto.
Nadezda Makroguzova, winner of last year’s U19 silver, also changed partners and will compete with Daria Rudykh.
Torey DeFalco will return to Portugal to try and better the bronze medal he won last year with Lucas Yoder. This time he will have Louis Richard at his side.
Other medal contenders in the men’s competition might be Russia’s Artem Yarzutkin and Oleg Stoyanovskiy, who finished 5th at the U21 World Championships last week.
Traditionally the tournament also features lots of newcomers and teams from developing countries.
The U19 World Championships will start on Tuesday with three rounds of qualification, with 21 women’s teams and 18 men’s. Four teams per gender will be added to the 32 main draw teams. The main draw competition starts on Wednesday with 6 pools of 6 teams each playing a round robin.
Two previous editions of the U19 World Championships have been held in Porto, in 2010 and 2013. Portugal has also hosted 22 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Open events, all held in Espinho. The FIVB U21 World Championships were staged on Porto Santo Island in 2004.
Porto is located on the northern coast of Portugal and is one of the oldest European centres, registered as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1996. The city was build on the banks of the Douro River and has a population of around 1,3 million.