Such a sad news for their fans but we wish them the BEST in 2013 and the years to come.
After a very successful 2012 season which includes winning a bronze medal at the 2012 London Olympics and a gold medal at the Mazury Orlen Grand Slam in Stare Jablonki, Latvia’s Olympic heroes have called it quits.
“It is amazing. At the last two tournaments we didn’t expect anything, but at the Olympics we finished with the bronze and here we won our first World Tour gold. We were tired from the Olympics and came here by car and didn’t expect much. We didn’t expect to beat such great teams like Emanuel (Rego) and Alison (Cerutti), and (Todd) Rogers and (Phil) Dalhausser. We didn’t think we had a chance, but we showed we could.” says Martins Plavins who will now partner with Janis Peda.
Janis Smedins’ is going to team up with Aleksandrs Samoilovs for the 2013 season.
In case you didn’t know, Janis and Martins received a huge welcome party when they returned home from the Olympics. They received a very special phone call from President Andris Bērziņš, toured the capital city to meet their fans and attended a party with government leaders.
We hope their new partnerships will work out just fine.
Changes are pretty much expected after the 2012 Olympics. For example, Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser have new partners, 2012 Olympic Champion Julius Brink will have a new partner after Jonas Reckermann’s sudden retirement due to injury & the women’s tour will also showcase new partnerships.
It’s going to be a very interesting 2013 season.
(source & image: FIVB)