Mārtiņš Pļaviņš (born 8 May 1985 in

Riga Riga ( ) is the capital, Primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city of Latvia. Home to 591,882 inhabitants (as of 2025), the city accounts for a third of Latvia's total population. The population of Riga Planni ...

) is a

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

beach volleyball Beach volleyball is a team sport played by two teams of two to four players each on a sand court divided by a net. Similar to indoor volleyball, the objective of the game is to send the ball over the net and to ground it on the opponent's side o ...

player. He teamed up with Aleksandrs Samoilovs in 2004. Pļaviņš and team mate Samoilovs represented Latvia at the

2008 Summer Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and officially branded as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes fro ...

Beijing, China Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

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 The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

). 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 Jānis Šmēdiņš (born 31 July 1987) is a Latvian beach volleyball Beach volleyball is a team sport played by two teams of two to four players each on a sand court divided by a net. Similar to indoor volleyball, the objective of the game i ...

. 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 The 2012 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012, were an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...

. 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.

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* * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Plavins, Martins 1985 births Living people Latvian beach volleyball players Men's beach volleyball players Beach volleyball players at the 2008 Summer Olympics Beach volleyball players at the 2012 Summer Olympics Olympic beach volleyball players for Latvia Olympic bronze medalists for Latvia Olympic medalists in beach volleyball Medalists at the 2012 Summer Olympics Beach volleyball players at the 2015 European Games European Games medalists in beach volleyball European Games gold medalists for Latvia Riga State Gymnasium No.1 alumni Latvian Academy of Sport Education alumni Sportspeople from Riga Beach volleyball defenders Beach volleyball players at the 2020 Summer Olympics 21st-century Latvian sportsmen