Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, August 5, 2016 - #11 Seed Piotr Kantor/Bartosz Losiak of Poland start off the night session with a Pool B match against #14 seed Markus Bockermann/Lars Fluggen of Germany in the Olympic debut for all four players.
Head to Head
The two teams have split their four meetings on the FIVB World Tour with Bockermann/Fluggen winning the first two meetings and Kantor/Losiak claiming victory in the last two. The Germans were forced to forfeit their only meeting in 2016 in the Bronze Medal Match at the Qatar Open in April. The other three meeting have all been in the round of 16 and have all needed a third set with Kantor/Losiak winning 18-21, 28-26, and 15-10 in one hour in Antalya in October, 2015 and Bockermann/Fluggen claiming the other two, 21-15, 20-22, and 15-10 in 57 minutes in Puerto Vallarta in October, 2015 and 23-25, 21-16, and 15-12 in Rio in September, 2015.
Historically the #11 seed has won three of the four meetings in the Olympic Games, including the last three. Two of the three wins were in straight sets with Cuba's Juan Rossell/Francisco Alvarez pushing Germany's Christoph Dieckmann/Andreas Scheuerpflug to the tie-breaking set in Athens, 21-19, 19-21, and 15-10 in 64 minutes. In Sydney, Russia's Sergey Ermishin/Mikhail Kouchnerev upset Argentina's Mariano Baracetti/Jose Salema, 15-4 in 30 minutes.
Piotr Kantor/Bartosz Losiak, Poland, Seed #11, Pool B, Qualified 11th with 5,180 Points in the 2015-16 Olympic qualification period
• Piotr: May 3, 1992 (24y3m3d), 200 cm (6'7"), 90 kg (200 lbs.), Hometown Sosnowiec, 56th FIVB World Tour event, one gold medal, $182,775 career winnings
• Bartosz: May 14, 1992 (24y2m23d), 190 cm (6'3"), 86 kg (191 lbs.), Hometown Jastrzebie Zdroj, 57th FIVB World Tour event, one gold medal, $194,775 career winnings
• Piotr and Bartosz have been playing together since 2009. They are playing in their 56th FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour tournament together (ranks 48th), one gold medal, $365,550 career winnings (ranks 51st).
• Piotr has played in six FIVB World Tour final fours with one gold, one silver, and four bronze medals.
• Bartosz has played in seven FIVB World Tour final fours with one gold, one silver, four bronze medals and one 4th place finish.
• Piotr and Bartosz have played in five Final Fours in 2015-2016 (Silver Stavanger Major 2015, Bronze Kish Island Open 2016, Gold Rio de Janeiro Grand Slam 2016, Bronze Doha Open 2016, Bronze Moscow Grand Slam 2016).
• Piotr and Bartosz finished 17th in the FIVB World Championships in 2013 (Stare Jablonki).
• Piotr and Bartosz are currently ranked 4th in FIVB World Tour points in 2016 with 4,760 points and 6th in winnings with $139,750.
• Piotr and Losiak have a career 124-95 (56.6%) match record in FIVB World Tour Events and a 83-48 (63.4%) record in the 2015-16 Olympic qualification period.
• Piotr and Bartosz won the gold medal at the U19 World Championships in 2010 (Porto, Portugal).
• Piotr and Bartosz won the silver medal at the U21 World Championships in 2011 (Halifax, Canada) and the gold medal in 2012 (Halifax, Canada).
• Piotr and Bartosz won the gold medal at the U23 World Championships in 2013 (Myslowice, Poland).
Markus Bockermann/Lars Fluggen, Germany, Seed #14, Pool B, Qualified 15th with 4,850 Points in the 2015-16 Olympic qualification period
• Markus: January 14, 1986 (30y6m23d), 198 cm (6'6"), 95 kg (211 lbs.), Hometown Hamburg, 68th FIVB World Tour event, two gold medals, $147,800 career winnings
• Lars: May 24, 1990 (26y2m13d), 192 cm (6'4"), 80 kg (178 lbs.), Hometown Berlin, 36th FIVB World Tour event, two gold medals, $113,475 career winnings
• Markus and Lars have been playing together since 2015. They are playing in their 24th FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour tournament together, two gold medals, $151,750 career winnings.
• Markus has played in seven FIVB World Tour final fours with two gold, three silver medals and two 4th place finishes.
• Lars has played in eight FIVB World Tour final fours with two gold, four silver medals and two 4th place finishes.
• Markus and Lars have played in seven Final Fours in 2015-2016 (Gold Fuzhou Open 2015, Silver Rio de Janeiro Open 2015, Silver Xiamen Open 2015, 4th Puerto Vallarta Open 2015-16, Gold Doha Open 2015-16, 4th Doha Open 2016, Silver Antalya Open 2016).
• Markus finished 9th in the FIVB World Championships with Mischa Urbatzka in 2013 (Stare Jablonki).
• Markus and Lars are currently ranked 13th in FIVB World Tour points in 2016 with 3,930 points and 19th in winnings with $81,750.
• Markus and Lars have a career 78-46 (62.9%) match record in FIVB World Tour Events, all in the 2015-16 Olympic qualification period.
• Markus won the silver medal at the European (CEV) Baden Masters with Mischa Urbatzka in 2013 (Baden, Austria).
• Lars won the silver medal at the CEV Novi Sad Masters with Alexander Walkenhorst in 2013 (Novi Sad, Serbia).
• Lars had knee surgery in April forcing him to miss several FIVB World Tour events