01 Sep 2012 at 22:21 | Published by: Hans | Views: 11508 | News search

Anne seems surpriced she just won the European Championships  (Photo by Hans Bergström 2012)

The last day of the European Championships began with again windy conditions and it was chancy and difficult to play in a from the start outset chance-like modus as cup matches. That’s why it was a bit surprising to notice that this year’s cup was a bit unusual since only one of yesterday’s top players (Reto Sommer who meet the winner Paolo Porta) lost in the first round.

The longer the day went the less wind was a problem. But instead it became very hoot and the coaches had a stiff job keeping the balls cold enough instead of warming them.

In the men’s class Paolo Porto of Italy, well known to be a good cup player, was cruel in his performance. On the five matches he played today he only lost 8 lanes. 3 of them came in a tight second match against Ulf Kristiansson. After Ulf, Paolo also meet two other Swedes, Filip Johansson and Jonas Gustafsson in the semifinal. So with 3 wins against Swedes he was faced with Austrian Herbert Ziegler in the final. Also this match Paolo gave Herbert little chance and won by 7-1.

In total Paolo had the overall quota of 27-8 in his five matches which is making him one of the best cup performers since the WMF started this modus. The silver medal went to Ziegler and bronze to yesterday’s winner Achim Braungart-Zink, who won the bronze match over Jonas Gustafsson.

In the ladies class it was to become the generation shift Saturday. For some years the younger girl generation has been knocking on the door wanting to take over from the older stars like Zodrow, Gruber, Kern and Klarenbeek. Yesterday we saw young Sara Karlsson win and Anne Bollrich took bronze. This trend continued today when Karin Heschl and Anne Bollrich played the final.

Karin Heschl, Anne Bollrich, Sara Karlsson and also Jana Nakladalova has all been junior stars in recent years and now this younger generation seem to have passed their older colleagues. With maybe one exception. Still German superstar Bianca Zodrow don’t want to give in to the young girls and today she took her small revenge from yesterday by winning over Sara Karlsson in the bronze match.

But the final was between two young and not so loud girls. And the less loud of them, Anne won. But she has team mates that can compensate the loudness for her. In the end it was a 5-2 win for Anne who looked a bit surprised over all the commotion she had created after winning. Anne Bollrich is this championships queen and Achim Braungart-Zink is the king. Both are going home with tree medal (Gold-Gold Bronze). Only Sweden’s Martin Lundell is sharper this year counting medals.

And lastly Minigolfnews staff would like to a bit extra congratulate Paolo Porta who is now the third in the Minigolfnews staff to become European Champion. Well, John, how likely is the rest of us winning?

SHARE Share Tweet