18 Jul 2009 at 17:24 | Published by: Hans | Views: 9830 | News search

Sandra Weaver, Jönköping, Swedish Champion 2009  (Photo by Hans Bergström 2009)

For the first time in general class, on his third attempt, Lars Brown, Uppsala is Swedish Champion. In 2005 Lars won the juniors championship but after taking the step up to general class in 2007 no medals have been won individually.

This time Lars was maybe not one of the absolute gold favorites and the felt is normally his weakest surface. But through being the second best overall on felt in the whole competition, only defeated by one stroke by silver medalist Pierre Zetterlund, Lars was proving all experts wrong. And by being the only player with blue average on eternit the gold was his. Lars also made the remarkable achievement of having blue average both on felt and eternit with 28,2 and 19,8.

Pierre Zetterlund, Tantogården, was never really threatened as silver medalist and was not able to threat Lars when Lars got a really good start on the last felt lap. Even if Pierre has been a national team player for Sweden for many years now this is his first medal since his bronze medal in 2002.

Also for one of the two bronze medalists Fredrik Persson, Granhyddan, a medal in the Swedish Championships are not an every day event. Fredrik actually have as many medals in international events as in the Swedish Championships. This was his second bronze medal.

For the other bronze medalist a bronze medal is maybe not ranked highest in his collection of Swedish Medals. In 2005 Anders Olsson won all (7) gold medals that were possible in Swedish Championships. Also in 2008 Anders won the gold so from Anders view this was a step back not only considering his great 2009 season so far.

Today’s competition was played after some morning rain showers and started not until 11:30 for most classes. And at 14:00 the rain made it impossible to continue on the eternit. So the competition management and the referees decided to not count the last and 12th lap and let the result from 11 laps be the final standing. Also the sudden death for third position in the men’s class and old-timers ladies were canceled due to rain.

Sandra Weaver once again proves that she is currently the best of the Swedish ladies. In the four year the Swedish Championships has been played on two surfaces as a combi competition (all in the combination of Felt and Eternite) Sandra has been winning two gold’s and two silvers. Last time she won gold was in 2006.

For the silver medalist Karin Wiklund she has yet to win a Swedish Championship on combi. Between the years 1997 and 2005 she won 9 years in a row the championship on eternit, but since that was scrapped in 2006 in favor of a combi competition she has not won yet. This time Karin ended 4 strokes behind Sandra and proves she is still one of the best female players in Sweden.

In third position last year’s winner Jessica Rengbrandt, Granhyddan, ended up. And exactly as boyfriend Fredrik Persson she won a bronze medal. Jessica has by that achievement probably played herself into the Swedish squad for Odense.

The winners in the other classes were:

Oldtimer ladies: Linda Lundberg, Gullbergsbro (301)
Oldtimers men: Peter Nordin, Sundsvall (283)
Junior boys: Filiph Svensson, Skoghall (286)
Junior girls: Frida Elmdahl, Växjö, (317)

In the junior boys class, Casper Frediksen from Denmark took the bronze medal. That a foriegn player is on medal position in the Swedish Championships has only happened once before in 2004 when Hans Prescher, Germany was on third place in the mens veterans.

A comment from the other foreign player, a very pleased Markus Berger, Tantogården and Austria was that he thought that with the same play as in this competition he would probably have been in about the same position in a world cup. He would then only have seven Swedes a head of him and not eleven like today.

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