Thousands of people gathered to pay their final respects to 🇮🇷 Saber Kazemi, the Iranian volleyball star who passed away on November 5, 2025 at the age of 26.
His burial ceremony drew an overwhelming crowd of supporters, teammates, and fans, a testament to the impact he made both on and off the court.
An Olympian (🇯🇵 Tokyo 2020), 2021 Asian Champion, and 2021 Asian Club Champion, as well as MVP of both tournaments, Kazemi was also a two-time Asian Games gold medalist (2018, 2022) and undoubtedly one of Iran’s brightest volleyball talents.
You will be deeply missed. 🕊️
#SaberKazemi #Volleyball
📸 @IRIVF
🕊️ RIP Saber Kazemi (1998-2025)
With heavy hearts, we mourn the passing of Iranian volleyball star Saber Kazemi, who died at just 26 years old. He was pronounced brain dead a few days ago before his passing was officially confirmed today.
Kazemi was one of Iran’s brightest talents, an Asian Champion, MVP, and one of the most explosive opposite spikers of his generation. His power, passion, and dedication brought pride to Iranian volleyball and inspired fans across Asia.
Our deepest condolences to his family, friends, teammates, and all who were inspired by his journey. 🙏
#Volleyball #SaberKazemi
#VNL2025 : SERVE MACHINE 💪🏻!
MiyaKen 🇯🇵 delivered one of the deadliest serves of the season — the curveball, the banana serve, whatever you call it — and finished with 19 aces to his name 🤩.
📺 Relive the #VNL on VBTV: https://t.co/tLeKGVOxxL
🏐 #Volleyball#BePartOfTheGame
Kento speaking about Taito: He brings out positive energy no matter the situation so he helps me. He’s reliable even for a point in a crucial moment. He is an important presence both for me and for the team.
🥹❤️
How does Ito feel about the differences between these two French coaches?
"When Philippe Blain first arrived, he asked us to do some incredibly difficult things," Ito recalls with a wry smile, but with nostalgia.
"For example, he'd ask us to use quick moves from the attack line. We couldn't do that back then, but it was the global standard.
Until then, Japan had believed that we couldn't win unless we had some special move or something that other countries weren't doing. But Blain taught me that this wasn't the case.
He taught me that
if Japan could do what the world's best players were doing, then we were naturally more dexterous and had better technical ability, and could therefore compete with the world.
It was Blain who told us,
'There's definitely more you can do,' and raised our game up a notch or two."
....
And yep, we can see them getting result with medals and then crawling to get higher ranking 🥺
In his words the players believed in working that way and produced amazing performance back then 😭😭😭
https://t.co/uKsy8fr4Kt
"it was a bit tough for me to see the player who was working the hardest being sad" - coach ito about miyaura tearing up during the interview after jpn lost against canada and was out of wch.
😭💔