Volleyball Canada – May 07, 2016: Canada wraps up the FIVB Beach World Tour Sochi Open in Russia with a fifth and ninth place.

The home teams proved to be tough opponents for the two Canadian men’s pairs. Josh Binstock and Sam Schachter (both of Richmond Hill, ON) fell to Russians Semenov/Krasilnikov 0-2 (18-21, 15-21) in the quarter finals today. Semenov/Krasilnikov went on to beat Italy, and the Russian duo is now in tomorrow’s gold-medal match against a different Italian pair, Nicolai/Lupo.

“This was definitely a bitter-sweet tournaments for us,” Binstock explained. “We’re happy with our play becoming more consistent, while beating the Rio Grand Slam champions (Poland) and the top Spanish team, who won a gold and bronze this year.  However, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed we didn’t end up on the podium. During the Russia match, we didn’t execute at the same level we had been all tournament and that’s necessary to win against a team who has the home crowd energizing them.”

Yesterday, Koshkarev and Bykanov of Russia eliminated Grant O’Gorman (Scarborough, ON) and Sam Pedlow (Barrie, ON) 2-1 (15-21, 21-15, 16-14). The Canadians finished in ninth.

There were no Canadian women’s teams entered in the Sochi Open.

The final four FIVB World Tour qualifying events begin with a stop next week in Turkey (Antalya, 10-15 followed by events in the United States (Cincinnati, May 17-22), Moscow (May 24-29) and Germany (Hamburg, June 7-12).  

For more on the FIVB World Tour, see www.fivb.org

The provisional Olympic rankings can be found here: 

• Men: http://www.fivb.org/EN/BeachVolleyball/OGRanking_M.asp
• Women: http://www.fivb.org/EN/BeachVolleyball/OGRanking_W.asp

 
Volleyball Canada media contact:
Jackie Skender
E-mail: jskender@volleyball.ca
Phone: 613.794.7676