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B.J. Hoeptner Evans
Manager, Communications
Phone: 719-228-6800
E-Mail: bj.evans@usav.org
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COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (Aug. 19, 2012) – The U.S. Olympic Men’s Beach Volleyball Team of Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers won the bronze medal at the Mazury Orlen Grand Slam in Stare Jablonki, Poland on Sunday.
The event is the final grand slam on the 2012 FIVB SWATCH World Tour.
Dalhausser (Ormond Beach, Fla.) and Rogers (Santa Barbara, Calif.), who are the two-time defending champions of the event and seeded No. 4, defeated the U.S. Olympic team of Jake Gibb (Bountiful, Utah) and Sean Rosenthal (Redondo Beach, Calif.) by injury forfeit.
The event may have been the last on the international tour for Dalhausser and Rogers, who have played together since 2005. Rogers has talked of retiring from international competition.
The team ends the 2012 season with four medals; gold from the Shanghai Grand Slam and Brasilia Open, and bronze medals from the Prague Open and Stare Jablonki.
“It’s been a disappointing year,” Rogers said in an FIVB press release. “When we look back we made the semifinals in six of our eight tournaments. Most would consider that a pretty good year, but Phil and I have set our sights and expectations a bit higher.
“We wanted to win really bad. There are five teams on the Tour with two wins each and it would have been nice for us to have won a third.”
Dalhausser and Rogers, who finished ninth at the Olympic Games in London after winning the gold medal in 2008, fell in the semifinals to Latvia’s Olympic bronze medalists Janis Smedins and Martins Plavins (No. 12), 17-21, 21-15, 15-8 in 57 minutes.
Gibb and Rosenthal, who placed fifth in London, lost their semifinal match to Austria’s No. 25 Clemens Doppler and Alexander Horst, 21-19, 21-17 in 47 minutes.
Gibb and Rosenthal had the best international season of their careers in 2012, finishing with two gold medals, two silver and one bronze on the World Tour. Gibb has also talked of retiring from international competition
The Mazury Orlen Grand Slam is the ninth of nine mixed-gender tournaments on the 2012 FIVB SWATCH World Tour and the final men’s tournament of the year. The winning side will leave with the largest share from a pot of $300,000 per gender.
For complete information on the 2012 FIVB SWATCH World Tour, visit their web site.