The Gold Medal Story — Interview with Kārlis Lasmanis

Kārlis Lasmanis, one of this decade’s most celebrated Latvian basketball talents, has become the country’s synonym for success when it comes to 3×3. Having dominated the FIBA 3×3 circuit with multiple championship victories as a team and ultimately leading Latvia to a historic gold medal at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, there was never any doubt that Lasmanis had a story to tell.

Despite early setbacks in traditional basketball, and even the thought of quitting it altogether, his transition to 3×3 ignited a career that nobody foresaw. In this interview, Kārlis reflects on the pivotal decisions that paved his path to Olympic gold.

Your father, Uģis, competed in two Olympic Games as a rower (1992 Summer Olympics and the 1996 Summer Olympics). How did growing up in such a sports-centric family shape you? 

Since childhood, I really had no other option but to be an athlete. I spent every summer with my family. Everywhere I went, it was always about sports. The competitive spirit was in every stone you picked up — who could throw it the furthest. Wanna go run? Okay. But who can run faster?

Dad started playing basketball when he stopped rowing. As long as I can remember, I always had a little basketball hoop at home. In all the videos from my childhood, when my mom asked me what I was going to be when I grew up, I said, “A basketball player.” I would’ve been an athlete either way.

Sports were never forced, though. Everybody always knows an athlete whose dad was a coach, or whose parents forced them to do it when they were kids. And they do sort of succeed, but it comes with this sense of duty. I never had that. I liked it, naturally, and I wanted to train all the time, to be at the gym, to shoot some hoops. My cousin went to his practice, and I wanted to go with him. My cousins were always much older, but I remember their dad — Māris Grīva, a coach — would take them out to train, and I would always go along and participate, even though I was the weakest and frailest. Nobody in that family thought I would get this far.

You and your sister, Rūta, are both chasing Olympic dreams—who’s the more competitive sibling?

Definitely me. In basketball, you have to compete all the time, you feel more of the literal contact. There, victories have a different weight to them, because if you lose, you lose to someone. For Rūta, it’s more of a fight with herself. If she won’t go to bed in time, she’ll miss that extra inch… But Rūta has always been on fire, always ready to achieve her goals, to give it her everything. I think it’s in our blood.

She also had great role models in the family. Her cousins were athletes, Lauma Grīva was a long jumper, and Rūta always followed in Lauma’s footsteps. She liked the way she trained, the way she lived, her philosophy of life. Lauma was a good example.

Is there any advice your dad gave you that you still hold on to today?

There is no one, single piece of advice I can think of, but my dad always said I should do what I do, in a way that I enjoy it. All his advice mostly sticks to the idea that you should grind for your dreams, but not overdo it.

You’ve played both traditional basketball and 3×3. How did you and 3×3 find each other?

The whole 3×3 basketball story is unreal. When I was a kid, I never thought I would play 3×3. I thought I would play in the NBA. Growing up, I was in a 5×5 team, you know, just trying to make it. I was okay, a fighter, even, but never the best or the brightest on the team. Everything came with hard work. For me, there was no room for some super talent. 

I didn’t make the U-16 team, I got injured in the U-18 team, I made the U-20 team where I hardly played at all and just warmed the bench… One team rejected me… At one point I realized I’d given up on basketball. I had already been working for a year. I was 20 years old and I was working for the Ventspils Freeport as a ship moorer. 

Ralfs Pleinics, the manager of BK “Ventspils”, came to the port where I worked, we broke the contract together, and that was it. I thought that’s where my relationship with basketball was essentially over. I gave it my best until the age of 20, but it didn’t work out, so I figured I had to do something else.

Somewhere, somehow, an opportunity fell out of the sky to go to Germany and try playing in the National 4th Division. I went to the gym with some other amateurs, one of them lived in Germany. He asked me if I wanted to try. They also offered me a salary — €600. I was making around €900 working at the port, still living with my parents at the time, making more money, in my comfort zone… Almost immediately, there was this loud “no” in my head. The road I was already going down was not the road I wanted to go down at all.

I packed my suitcase, put in my notice and went to Germany. Trained there for a year, got picked up by a 2nd Division team, which is pretty good level. I learned quite a lot. I lived on my own, got roughed up a bit, understood what hustle meant. When you make €600 but you also want to go out, but you have no idea how to spend money or how to save it… Definitely opened up new perspectives in life. I had to understand how a lot of it works.

After that season, I grew up as a person. I was offered to play for BK “Liepāja”, sign a contract with them, see how it goes. They took me in. I played well one season — even then, started out on the bench and worked my way up to the lineup. Second season, I was already playing better. Then, I was offered a contract in Jūrmala. 

Parallel to that, 3×3 basketball picked up. Mysteriously, when 3×3 took off, I started playing in “Ghetto Games”, was playing 5×5 professionally, making decent money… I still don’t understand how, but with 3×3, everything came together unexpectedly well. A team was formed and we started playing and it was obviously working. Then, it was declared an Olympic sport.

My teammates and I realized that we had what it took to become a world-class competitive team. In 2017, we won the FIBA 3×3 Europe Cup. The Latvian Olympic Committee were ready to help, we were invited to other FIBA tournaments. 

Of course, there were those crossroads again — 5×5 gave a stable salary, especially for my age, a career with prospects, an apartment in Riga. I had to choose between playing only 5×5 or only 3×3. You could combine both, but you also can’t, because the seasons overlap and the game is different. 

What’s the biggest challenge transitioning between the two formats? Or an underrated skill in 3×3 basketball that people often overlook?

In 3×3, you don’t have a coach who’s going to drag you off the court and cuss you out. I’d say it’s more like an individual sport, even though it’s a team sport. 5×5 is quite systematic. If you’re a tall center, you don’t have to cover the whole court. 3×3 is so dynamic that often the little guy has to cover the big guy, and vice versa. You get disproportionate situations, have to be crafty and think how to outsmart your opponent. That’s why, in 3×3, you need a big heart. Just like in hockey. If you don’t necessarily have the talent, you have to show how much you want it. 

I realized how much I loved 3×3. And we started winning. We won in 2017, in 2018, and in 2019 we were already the second, third best team in the world.

Latvia brought home the 3×3 basketball gold in Tokyo—what was going through your mind then?

Yeah… Then came the Tokyo Olympics and the qualification games. We had that fire in our eyes. We knew we had a real chance to go to the Olympics, and we worked so hard for it… And then, that COVID-19 year, it hit everyone. Imagine being as ready as we were, in the best shape we could possibly be, being told that everything is postponed by a year. At that moment, nobody even knew if the Olympics would happen at all. But they did! And we won the qualification — clawed our way to it, but we qualified.

The road to Tokyo itself was quite surreal. A lot of small but important factors coincided there. Success factors, and also the overall chemistry of the team, each of us as individuals and how we complemented each other.

In Tokyo we won, and then we lost… And then we realized that we weren’t really playing the way we should — as the favorites. But we were also nervous. So when I made that crucial shot… Man, I was just happy. In that split second, it didn’t seem like such a big, grandiose moment. It makes no difference whether it’s a home game, the World Cup or the Olympics. You’re just happy.

You have to digest those victories. Because you don’t realize what you’ve done and on what scale you’ve done it. Now, looking back on the road traveled, realizing what it took, all the choices that have been made… I’m not the most professional athlete either. I often make decisions based purely on emotion. So in hindsight, it’s insane. It seems completely unreal.

You and your teammates have become an iconic trio. What’s the secret?

We’ve been together for seven, eight years. I see Čavars, Krūmiņš, Miezis more than my friends. We’re a family — they’re my brothers. We complement each other because our characters go very well together. There are times when you have to smack each other, or cry on a shoulder — just like a real family.

You’re relatively fresh out of a loss in Paris. How do you grapple with it?

Paris is painful to look back on because we really dominated. This was a tournament where it felt like we just had to walk in, collect another Olympic medal and go home. Mentally, we were ready and had the experience — but something in the energy was a bit off. But that’s also a valuable experience. That’s what happens in sport: sweet victories, sour losses.