Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, August 11, 2016 - On the brink of elimination from the Rio 2016 Olympic Games after losing their first two pool play matches, Brazilians Evandro Goncalves and Pedro Solberg rebounded to win a three-set Pool D match here Thursday evening that eliminated Aleksandrs Samoilovs and Janis Smedins of Latvia from the competition.
In posting a 2-1 (21-16, 20-22, 15-7) win in 49 minutes over Samoilovs and Smedins for their second-straight win over the Latvians in as many meetings, Evandro and Pedro placed second in the group after tying with their Latvian rivals and Ben Saxton/Chaim Schalk of Canada with 1-2 match marks.
With the point ratio among the three tying teams used to determine the group order, Evandro/Pedro’s 1.101 (plus-10 points) ratio was better than the Canadians (0.981, minus-2) with the Latvians (0.925, minus-8) third and eliminated. All three teams lost to NORCECA Continental Cup qualifiers Nivaldo Diaz and Sergio Gonzalez of Cuba in pool play.
The Latvians elimination was surprising as Samoilovs and Smedins entered the Rio 2016 Olympic Games as the top team on the 2015-2016 FIVB World Tour ranking list. In addition, Smedins won the bronze medal in Beach Volleyball at the London 2012 Olympic Games with Martins Plavins.