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Nusbaum and Plantinga narrowly miss Pan Am podium

By OVA, 07/30/19, 4:45PM EDT

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The Pan Am Games in Lima, Peru may continue until August 11, but the beach volleyball portion officially ended today with Aaron Nusbaum and Mike Plantinga narrowly missing the podium with a fourth-place finish.

While the opening ceremonies took place on July 26, Canadians representatives Aaron Nusbaum, Mike Plantinga, Amanda Harnett and Marie-Christine Lapointe were already into day three of their competition. The pre-opening ceremony event didn’t stop Team Canada’s fans from showing up with their support either, cheering loud enough to be clearly heard on the live stream.

Aurora’s Nusbaum and Plantinga from Langley, B.C. opened their tournament with a close match against Nicaragua ultimately taking their first win of the Pan Am Games 2-0 (22-20, 30-28). Moving along, Canada defeated the United States 2-0 (21-19. 21-12) advancing to the quarterfinal where they faced the Venezuelan team. Canada powered through their three-set match and punching their semi-final ticket.

Chile would not be denied sending the pair to the bronze medal match where the Canadians fought hard but fell just shy of the Argentinians 2-0 (21-17, 21-18) and settling for fourth.

In the women’s competition, Burlington’s Harnett and partner Lapointe from St-Jean-Sur-Richelieu, Que. started their tournament by defeating Nicaragua 2-1 to match their Canadian beach teammates. The ladies continued to shine as they earned a 2-0 victory in their second match against Guatemala in the preliminary pool play. Following their back-to-back successes, Canada took on Argentina, which took them into another three-set match with the South American team edging them out with a 2-1 win (21-13, 20-22, 15-11). The Canadians finished their time at the Pan Am Games with a ninth-place finish after knocking off both Mexico 2-0 (21-16, 21-17) and Peru 2-0 (21-0, 21-0).

Pan Am Games closing ceremonies are set for August 11.