Whatever else might happen to the Latvian team of Mārtiņš Pļaviņš and Jānis Šmēdiņš as they proceed into the semi-finals of beach volleyball competition in the 2012 Summer Olympics, it appears clear they have left an impression—especially on the Americans.

It was in California, after all, that the sport was born. And just like four years ago in Beijing, when Māris Strombergs took the gold in the all-American sport of BMX cycling, the small Baltic nation is making sports fans take notice in London.

Journalists working for American media seemed just as stunned as the American team of Jake Gibbs and Sean Rosenthal, who lost Aug. 6 to the Latvians two sets to one.

Yahoo! Sports blogger Greg Wyshynski offered a sobering fact for fans:

For only the second time in the event’s Olympic history, the U.S. men’s beach volleyball teams won’t win a medal in the tournament.

David Wharton, writing in the Los Angeles Times, found meaning in the slight turn in the weather during the match:

As night descended on center court at Horse Guards Parade, a gentle rain began to fall. In that moment, you could see it and feel it, the gloom that had settled over the American men in beach volleyball.

Michael C. Lewis, writing in the Salt Lake Tribune, started his story with an observation of Utah native Gibb:

Jake Gibb stood slump-shouldered and shell-shocked, staring blankly at the spot where the volleyball had just landed in the sand and ended his gold-medal dreams at the London Olympics.

For Gibb, the defeat was “most disappointing loss of my career,” according to a story posted on Team USA’s official website.

Over at NBC Olympics, Jon Ackerman summed up the “stunning end” for the American beach volleyball team and the meaning of these Olympics: “It’s a cruel place for a hot streak to come to an end.”

The Latvians now are guaranteed at least a fourth-place finish as they head into the Aug. 7 semi-finals, facing Brazil’s Alison Cerutti and Emanuel Rego.

About 70,000 volunteers are among the people who are having a hand in the 2012 London Olympics, and at least one of them is a Latvian.

London-born Pēteris Pētersons is helping out as one of the Games Makers, he told Latvians Online in an email.

More than 240,000 people applied to be Games Makers and interviews were held with 100,000 of them, according to the official website of the London Olympics, london2012.com.

Volunteers, according to the website, have been part of the Olympics since they were first used in the 1948 London Olympics.

Pētersons, among other things, also is known as the bass player in the dormant Latvian-British punk band Arvīds un Mūrsitēji.

Both female vocal ensemble Latvian Voices and mixed choir Sõla, the only representatives from Latvia, were successful at the 2012 World Choir Games held in July in Cincinnati, Ohio in the United States.

Latvian Voices, led by Laura Jēkabsone, received a gold medal (awarded to all participants who score 80 or more points out of a maximum 100 points), as well as the Championship (highest point score overall) in the female chamber choir category, with a point score of 91.25.

Sõla, the Latvian Academy of Culture choir, led by artistic director Kaspars Ādamsons and conductor Kaspars Vēvers, won gold medals in all three categories they competed in – Mixed Choir, Folklore, as well as Musica Sacra (where the choir scored their personal highest point score – 93.88 out of 100 points).

Organized by the German-based INTERKULTUR, the World Choir Games is a bi-yearly event that, in 2012, featured 23 separate categories for competition, with more than 10,000 participants from more than 60 countries.

The next World Choir Games will take place in 2014 in Rīga, and the event will take place as part of Rīga’s tenure as cultural capital of Europe, which is being organized by Foundation Rīga 2014. As part of the closing ceremonies of the Games in Cincinnati, Rīga received the World Choir Games flag.

For further details go to either the Latvian Voices website – www.latvianvoices.lv, the Sõla website – www.sola.lv,
the World Choir Games website – 2012worldchoirgames.com,
INTERKULTUR or Foundation Rīga 2014.