• Tuvalu is one of the first Pacific islands to feel the effects of climate change.
• Ampex Isaac and Saaga Malosa train on an air strip as their main island is sinking.
• Isaac and Malosa from Tuvalu performed in front of their home crowd for the first time.

“Tu, tu, Tuvalu!” was heard all over the beach volleyball stadium at the Commonwealth Games as people cheered for the team from Tuvalu, a small Pacific island nation that is one of the first places to feel the effects of climate change.

A video of Tuvalu’s foreign minister Simon Kofe standing in the water was one of the most striking images from last year’s UN climate summit in Glasgow.

He stood at a lectern in a suit with his pants rolled up to show how rising sea levels pose “existential risks” to Tuvalu and other low-lying atoll nations.

Changes to the islands, which have a population of about 11,000, have affected how Ampex Isaac and Saaga Malosa train. They lost their men’s pool game to New Zealand on a rainy night in Birmingham.

Isaac and Malosa have to go to another island to train while rugby and football players from Tuvalu work out on the air strip.

“Speaking to some of the older members of the Tuvalu team, they say a football pitch they once played on has just totally disappeared,” Tuvalu’s beach volleyball coach Marty Collins said.

The Australian says that the progress his charges have made is impressive, given how hard things are for them.

“They only just got a beach volley court around four months ago with a training camp set up by the Tuvaluan assistant coach,” Collins said.

“They had to travel to another island as the main island the boys are from, there is no real space for a court. The beach is quite narrow and some beaches are no longer there.

“They have not had a court (on the main island) for a couple of years.

“They are losing space, the island is sinking so when some people might lose land they are given land where the court might have been.”

Isaac says that the main island’s beaches are not good because they “sloping”

Tuvalu also has a high unemployment rate, which makes it hard for Isaac, who is 25, and Malosa, who is a year younger and wears a baseball cap, to make a living.

Collins said, “Saaga is a skin diver and goes spear-fishing,” “He subsists on that by selling what he catches. Ampex picks up a bit of construction work when it is available.”

Collins says Isaac and Malosa are “reserved guys” but as they got to work in front of a loud crowd in Birmingham, they seemed to be having fun.

As they fought back to tie the second set at 13-13, their smiles got bigger and they slapped their hands more often.

As Queen’s “I Want to Break Free” played over the loudspeakers, they dared to hope for an upset.

But the New Zealanders won the second set 21-17, giving the Tuvaluans their second straight loss.

Isaac was glad that they hadn’t died from the bright lights.

“It is a very proud moment of course,” he said. “We were so happy the crowd was behind us.

“We are not used to crowds like this — we have never performed in front of so many people.

“Maybe it is the first time they heard of Tuvalu and that is why they were so happy.”

Isaac and Malosa have bigger goals: they want to make it to the Olympics in Paris in 2024.

Collins, who was hired by the International Volleyball Federation to coach the two, says they are good enough and deserve to be “front and centre” even though it is very expensive to play volleyball abroad.

Isaac and Malosa will have heard of the French capital, but they won’t have heard of the city that will host the Commonwealths.

Isaac said, “We had heard of Aston Villa but we did not know it was in Birmingham,”