30-year old Canadian men’s volleyball star Gavin Schmitt has announced his retirement from national team play after the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
“The first step is to try and get healthy and honour my contract with my pro club in Poland,” said Schmitt, who is playing with Asseco Resovia in Poland’s top level volleyball league. “It is no secret that I have battled injuries over the past few years, and I would really like get over the ones that ailed me all summer and get through this season.”
Schmitt played through the Rio 2016 Olympics this summer after having surgery for stress fractures in his leg in January – a procedure that he already had once in 2013.
Schmitt has been on the Canadian National Team since 2007, a career thatn includes 4 Pan American Cup medals and 2 NORCECA Championship medals.
He won individual awards at the 2008, 2009, and 2011 Pan American Cup, and was named both the best scorer and best server at the 2015 Pan American Games where he led Canada to a bronze medal in Toronto in front of a home crowd.
“I will always remember when I first made the team in 2007. I did not have a very good tryout and I was thinking I wasn’t going to make the team; then the meeting with Glenn (Hoag) and the coaches and hearing that I had in fact been selected changed my life,” he says now.
“Gavin gave everything he could, even when he was in pain,” said men’s team head coach, Glenn Hoag. “He is passionate, and had a great impact on and off the court during his career with Team Canada, and I’m certain he will stay involved and continue to help promote the sport.”
Schmitt didn’t entirely close the door to a return in the future, saying “There comes a time in everyone’s life where something has to give, for me that time is now. Though I look forward to a new chapter in my life I never completely close a door behind me, you never know what the future may hold.”
The 6’10” opposite hitter was a part of the Canadian team that qualified for the 2016 Olympic Games – a momentous occasion and the team’s first since the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.
Canada finished 2nd in pool A at the Olympics, which included a shocking 3-0 sweep over the Americans on the tournament’s first day. Schmitt led the Canadians in kills with 12 in that defeat of Team USA, and recorded double-digit spikes in every game of pool play for Canada – including 23 in a four-set victory over Italy.
Canada would eventually succumb to Russia 3-0 in the quarterfinals, but their run through the group stage caught the attention of the Canadian fan base.
Schmitt thanked his fans via an Instagram post last week:
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