Mārtiņš Pļaviņš
Mārtiņš Pļaviņš (born 8 May 1985 in Riga) is a Latvian beach volleyball player. He teamed up with Aleksandrs Samoilovs in 2004. Pļaviņš and team mate Samoilovs represented Latvia at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China after which they stopped playing together. At the 2008 Olympics, the #21-ranked Latvian team achieved a major upset in the preliminary round, beating the #1-ranked team of Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser (United States). Latvian team won its preliminary round group and in round of 16 lost to Austrian team Florian Gosch and Alexander Horst. After the 2008 Olympics , he began playing together with Jānis Šmēdiņš. At the 2010 European Beach Volleyball Championships, Pļaviņš and Šmēdiņš won the bronze medal. They followed this up by winning the bronze medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics. They lost to Rego and Cerutti of Brazil in the semi-final but beat Nummerdor and Schuil of the Netherlands in the bronze medal match.