Semenov, Konstantin Sergeevich

Konstantin Semenov was born on June 9, 1989 in Tokmak in a sports family: his father was a professional volleyball player , and his mother was a basketball player ^[2] . In early childhood, Constantine and his parents moved to Smolensk ^[3] . There, he was seven years old, in 1996, he began to engage in volleyball at the Specialized Sports School No. 7 with Oleg Vladimirovich Anufriev ^[4] .

Career in volleyball

In 2003, together with another pupil of Oleg Anufriev, Dmitry Kovyryayev, Konstantin Semyonov received an invitation from Yaroslavl “Oilman” , and a year later he ended up in Belgorod and in the 2004/05 season began speaking for Lokomotiv-Belogorie -2 in the first league Championship of Russia.

In 2007, he played in the junior national team of Russia, which took 4th place under the leadership of Andrei Voronkov at the European Championships in Vienna . In 2008, Semenov retrained from the central blocker to the pre-player and as part of a team that moved to the next age category and transferred to Vladimir Kondre , became the bronze medalist of the youth championship of the continent in Brno . In August 2009, he participated in the World Youth Championship in Pune (5th place), and soon after its completion he made his debut in beach volleyball .

After the Olympic Games 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Konstantin Semenov returned to classic volleyball, having concluded a one-year contract with Gazprom-Yugra ^[5] . At the end of December 2016, the agreement with the Surgut club was terminated early ^[6] , and a month later Semyonov replenished the composition of Belogoriya ^[7] . Since December 2017, he has once again been playing beach volleyball.

Beach Volleyball Careers

Konstantin Semenov was called up "on the sand" in connection with an ankle injury of Igor Kolodinsky and stood in a pair with his long-term partner Dmitry Barsuk . The debut turned out to be successful - in September 2009, Badger and Semyonov won the bronze medal of the open Cup of Russia, and a month later at the first joint stage of the World Tour in the Chinese city of Sanya took the 17th place. In the winter of 2010, Semyonov purposefully prepared for the new season in beach volleyball, worked at the national team training camps, and in February at Volia Grad , together with Dmitry Barsuk, won silver at the first international tournament under the roof of the Russian Winter.

In most tournaments of 2010, Semenov played together with the bronze medalist of the youth world championship Alexey Pastukhov . Their best results were the 9th place in the Paf Open World Tour stage in the Aland Islands , the 5th place in the U23 European Championship in Greece and the 3rd place in the Russian Championship . In June 2011, the duet Konstantin Semenov / Yaroslav Koshkarev , who took 9th place at the World Championships in Rome and 14th position (the best among all Russian couples) in the overall World Tour, formed. Once in a season, Semenov and Koshkarev were on the podium, winning bronze in August at the Open category tournament in The Hague . In the same year, Konstantin Semenov, together with the Latvian volleyball player Alexander Samoilov, won the first Russian title in his career.

On the eve of the 2012 Olympic Games, Yaroslav Koshkarev was disturbed by an injury that prevented him from traveling to London and was out of the game for six months. At this time, Sergei Prokopiev became his partner with Konstantin Semenov, with whom he played quite a bit in early 2011. On July 1, at the World Cup in Moscow, they obtained an Olympic license for Russia, and it was this couple that, by decision of the head coach of the Russian team, Vyacheslav Nirka, went to the Games in London ^[8] .

At the start of the Olympic tournament in London, the Russian couple lost in two games to the current European champions and future champions of the London Games Julius Brink and Jonas Reckerman from Germany, and two days later they were defeated in a dramatic duel by Swiss Sebastien Chevalier and Sasha Hayer . This match was the longest of all played in the men's tournament of the Olympiad (69 minutes), and at its climax - in the match ball of an opponent in the third game - the judge decided not in favor of the Russians ^[9] . In the last game of the group stage, Semyonov and Prokopyev defeated the Chinese couple U Pengen / Xu Lingyin , which provided them with an exit to the playoffs. According to the additional indicators, the Russian team passed the participation in the play-off match and went directly to the 1/8 finals, where Jake Gibb / Sean Rosental conceded under the 4th number to the American couple - 14:21, 20:22.

Konstantin Semenov again played with Yaroslav Koshkaryov in February 2013 at the Russian Winter. In the course of the season, they became winners of two tournaments of the European Confederation of Volleyball (in Antalya and Baden ), the first ever Anapa Open tournament in the World Tour, and also took 3rd place at the Universiade in Kazan ^[10] . In August, they reached the playoffs of the European Championship in Klagenfurt , but were forced to withdraw from the tournament due to Koshkarev's injury. For the next competition of the season - the stage of the World Tour in Berlin of the category of the Grand Slam - Semenov went with Vyacheslav Krasilnikov . The new Russian team, which managed to hold only a few training sessions before the tournament, was able to defeat a number of the strongest pairs, including the reigning world and European champions, and won silver ^[11] .

On June 1, 2014, Semenov and Krasilnikov lost in the Anapa Open final to the Latvian couple, Martins Plyavins / Alexander Solovey , but less than two weeks later they took revenge on her in the match of the Moscow Grand Slam tournament at the center of beach sports at the Water Stadium . In the knockout fights, the Russians did not give a single game to their rivals, beating in particular the bronze medalists of last year’s World Championships Jonatan Erdman and Kai Matysik and the winners of the 2013 World Tour Alexander Samoilov and Janis Šmidins . In the semifinals, which were interrupted for 40 minutes due to heavy rain, Semyonov and Krasilnikov took over the European champions with the Italians Paolo Nicolai and Daniele Lupo , and in the final - with Grzegorz Piyalek and Mariusz Prudel from Poland. In the decisive matches, Konstantin Semyonov, who injured his hand, played on painkillers ^{[12] [13]} . The victory in the men's Grand Slam tournament was the first for Russia since 2008, when Dmitry Barsuk and Igor Kolodinsky achieved similar success in Klagenfurt .

2015 did not bring the Russian team medals at international tournaments - the best results for Konstantin Semenov and Vyacheslav Krasilnikov were 4th in the World Tour stages in Yokohama and Sochi , and the Russians in 1/8 finals in a bitter struggle lost to the Dutch Reinder at the World Championships in the Netherlands Nummerdor and Christian Warenhorst .

In May – June 2016, Konstantin Semenov, together with Vyacheslav Krasilnikov, won silver medals at the Open Series tournament in Sochi and the European Championship in Biel , as well as bronze at the Grand Slam category tournament in Hamburg . In the world Olympic ranking, the Russian team took the 7th place and won the right to play at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro ^[14] .

In Rio 2016, the team Konstantin Semenov / Vyacheslav Krasilnikov achieved the best result in the entire history of the Russian “beach” performances at the Olympics and remained a step away from the podium, taking 4th place. The Russians scored three victories in the group stage, and then within the playoffs they confidently beat Jefferson Pereira and Sheriff Yunus from Qatar and in the hardest match broke the resistance of Cubans Nivaldo Diaz and Sergio Gonzalez . The outcome of the semifinal match against the Italians Daniele Lupo and Paolo Nikolai was decided in the third game, the result of which (13:15) was influenced by two referee mistakes ^[15] . In the match for the 3rd place, Semyonov and Krasilnikov lost to the 2013 world champions Alexander Brauer and Robert Meeuwsen with a score of 21:23, 20:22 ^[16] .

In December 2017, after more than a one-year break, Konstantin Semenov resumed playing beach volleyball, and his partner was Ilya Leshukov . The first performance of the new team ended in victory at the final stage of the championship of the Eastern European Volleyball Area Association in Moscow ^[17] . In May 2018, Semyonov and Leshukov won the stage of the 3-star World Tour in Mersin , Turkey, and in October became the winners of the 4-star tournament in Yangzhou , gaining the upper hand over another Russian couple, Vyacheslav Krasilnikov and Oleg Stoyanovskiy .

Volleyball appearances in the snow

In December 2018, Konstantin Semenov, in a team with Peter Korolev, Maxim Khudyakov and Ruslan Bykanov, at the Water Stadium in Moscow, won the gold of the first stage of the Euro Tour-2018/19 in volleyball on snow ^[18] .

In volleyball

• Bronze medalist of the European Championship among youth teams : .

Beach Volleyball

Overall

• Prizes at the stages of the World Tour :
  • 1st - Anapa-2013, Moscow-2014 (GS ), Mersin-2018 (3 *), Yangzhou-2018 (4 *),
  • 2nd - Berlin 2013 (GS), Anapa 2014, Sochi 2016,
  • 3rd - The Hague 2011, Hamburg 2016 (GS), Ostrava 2018 (4 *), The Hague 2019 (4 *), Warsaw 2019 (4 *).
• Prizes at CEV tournaments:
  • 1st - Baden 2013 (“Masters”), Antalya 2013 (“Satellite”),
  • 2nd - Anapa-2013, 2014 (“satellite” - “Russian winter”).
• At the Olympic Games : 2012 - 9th place, 2016 - 4th place.
• At the world championships : 2011 , 2013 , 2015 , 2019 - 9th place.
• At the European Championships : , , - 17th place, , - 9th place, - 2nd place, - 4th place.
• Bronze medalist of the Universiade (2013) .
• Champion of Russia (2011, 2014), silver (2018) and bronze (2010, 2012) winner of Russian championships.

By partners

• Profile on the website of the International Volleyball Federation (English)
• Performance statistics on bvbinfo.com (English)