Latvian Beach Volleyball Triumph

The Latvian beach volleyball duo Tīna Graudiņa and Anastasija Samoilova reached the pinnacle of their journey in 2025, winning gold at the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships. As we keep celebrating our golden team, let’s look at how they got there.

The Golden Point

It is Sunday evening in Adelaide, Australia, when the ball flies over the net for the final rally between Latvia and the USA, both fighting for the gold medal. After Tīna Graudiņa’s block, Anastasija Samoilova lunges to keep the ball alive, and Tīna lifts it perfectly for the last strike. Anastasija delivers the decisive hit. Taryn Brasher touches it, but it’s too precise – the ball lands in the sand of the opposing team, giving Latvia the golden point of the game.

The crowd erupts. Tina and Anastasija embrace. In that historic moment, Graudiņa and Samoilova claim Latvia’s first-ever world championship gold in beach volleyball and become the first female team from independent Latvia to win a world title in an Olympic summer sport, states the “IR” magazine.

“We managed to assemble an outstanding team around us,” Tīna shares. “You cannot accomplish great things alone. You also need to put in a lot of hard work and trust the process – that all the invested work will pay off.”

In 2025, 48 women’s teams from 28 countries competed in the championship. The Latvian beach volleyball duo dominated the tournament, dropping only a single set across eight matches in Australia. After winning the championship, they thanked their support team, families, and the fans, whose chants of “LAT-VI-JA!” echoed throughout the games.

A Win Years in the Making

This spectacular victory wasn’t sudden or miraculous. Graudiņa and Samoilova have been playing together since 2013, building over a decade of disciplined training, careful strategy, the right attitude, and just a touch of luck. Their journey has been both methodical and impressive.

In 2016, they won gold, their first major international title, at the U22 European Championship, followed by silver in 2018. At the World Championships, the duo’s earlier campaigns placed them in a shared 9th place in 2019, 2022, and 2023. They fared even better in the European Championships, winning gold in 2019 and 2022. Leading up to their 2025 world title, they also achieved 4th place at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and 5th place at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

As Tīna explains, Latvia is actually an excellent place for honing beach volleyball skills despite summer being just one of the four seasons here: “First of all, we have many indoor halls where you can play beach volleyball even in winter, and secondly, we have a very long beach with many kilometers of sand – in summer, this is the best place for beach volleyball players to be.”

But physical training was only part of their edge. As reported by the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB), Samoilova visualized herself as champion weeks before Adelaide, asking daily: “What would Anastasija Samoilova – World champion – do in this kind of situation?” Under new coach Daniel Rodriguez Wood, the team built a mental framework focused on presence and precision. One point at a time, always with the right attitude.

In the aftermath of their success, the duo was also named the best women’s beach volleyball team of 2025 by FIVB and later awarded Latvia’s Three Star Award as the Small Sports Team of the Year.

“I believe that our success reinforces Latvia’s image as a competitive country – one that can innovate, aim high, and belong fully to the global sports world,” Tīna concludes.

Now, all eyes turn to the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. We’re holding our breath and cheering on our golden duo, wishing them strong form and steady luck. They already have the support of an entire nation – at home and far beyond Latvia’s borders.