Beach volleyball will see six Age-Group World Championships in 2016 – three for women and three for men.

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Latvian Alexandrs Samoilovs (right) won the 2005 U21 World Championship in Rio de Janeiro, his team mate Jānis Šmēdiņš(left) became 4th at the U21 World Championship in Myslowice – both were runners up at the Gstaad Major in 2015 Photocredit: Andreas Langreiter

The FIVB Under-21 World Championships for men and women will take place from May 11 to 16 in Lucerne, Switzerland. Next up will be the FIVB Under-17 World Championships in Cabo Frio, Brazil, which will take place from July 12 to 17. Finally, Larnaka, Cyprus, will host the FIVB Under-19 World Championships from July 26 to 31

In each competition, there will be 32 teams in the main draw, playing in eight pools of four teams. The best three teams in each pool will advance to the single-elimination round.

Two years ago, in 2014, the competition gave opportunities to many young players to compete at a top-drawer event. This included 13-year old local player Evita Leonidou. Although she was not the youngest participant in FIVB history - that was Hungarian Viktoria Kiss with 13 years, 1 month and 19 days at the U21 in 2006 – she was the youngest player competing in Larnaka.