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Latvians Net FIVB World Tour Gold Medal
- Updated: May 15, 2016
Antalya, Turkey, May 15, 22016015 – The men’s gold medal match here Sunday to conclude the competition for the second annual Antalya Open will not be played as a left knee injury for Lars Fluggen forced the German to forfeit his title contest with Marcus Bockermann against Aleksandrs Samoilovs and Janis Smedins of Latvia.
Seeded ninth in the US$150,000 Antalya Open, Fluggen and partner Marcus Bockermann captured the first semi-final match Sunday by defeating 25th-seeded qualifiers Georgios Kotsilianos and Nikos Zoupanis of Greece 2-0 (21-16, 21-17) in 38 minutes to advance to their fifth FIVB World Tour gold medal match.
The fourth-seeded Samoilovs and Smedins rallied in Sunday’s second semi-finals to post a 2-1 (18-21, 25-23, 15-13) win over sixth-seeded Grzegorz Fijalek of Mariusz Prudel of Poland in the fifth FIVB World Tour meeting between the two teams with the Latvians now lead 4-1.
INJURY UPDATE
After completing his post-match interviews, Fluggen retired to the athlete’s lounge at BeachPark where his left knee started to swell. It was a FIVB stop in Qatar at the start of April that Fluggen injured his left knee that resulted in meniscus surgery that forced him to miss international events in China, Brazil and Russia before returning to action this week.
“I just did not want to risk any further injury to my right knee,” said the 25-year old Fluggen while the second semi-final was being played Sunday. “We were looking forward to playing the winners of the match to see if we could win our third gold medal, but my knee just was not feeling right and our physio recommended that I stop play today. It is very disappointing as we are in a fight for a spot in the Olympics. We were looking forward to playing to continue to improve our standings.”
With their win over the Greeks in the first-ever FIVB World Tour meeting between the two teams, Bockermann and Fluggen added another 100 points to their qualifying total for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. With …
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