Hello
During the last 10 days, I was in Odense to play the world championships. As each time since 20 years now, I can see the differences between the best players of the world and the french players.

I think there is a real difference between players as CJ Ryner, Harald Erlbruch and french players, but I think the differences could be lower if we played in the same conditions. During my carreer, I met some international players during tournament, without coaches, .... and the differnce between their and me was not so huge. I can also took the example of Csaba Palinkas. His level increased really quickly since he played for WAT21 and during the world championships in Odense, he played some balls prepared by the austrian team and he could have information for the putt coming from austria.

The level of Jeason Weaver is also higher and higher and it's probably due to a lot of time of training but it's probably also easier to progress when you play on felt course with swedish coaches.

During the WC, The swiss headcoach Wolfgang Wicki help me on lane 6 on felt course. He spend only 10 minutes with me and I probably wins betwwen 5 and 10 shots on this lane compare to the training.

The swiss federation propose in WC to help in the future the small federation. Germay, austria and sweden agreed with that. But what is a small federation? France of course need help to progress, understand the lane better, understand our ball mistake and understand how to prepare the balls. I think Sweden can also help great countries like italia on felt course for exemple.

It's not so esay during the WC training to ask to the foreign players or coaches what balls they play and what is the preparation of the balls. I have more than 2000 balls but by coming by car, I take only 400 balls and no one was good for the looping (my maier classic 1 roh and my boF Nestler was at home). So, I think it could be good to have in the WC or EC a group of 4 independant WMF coaches coming from germany, sweden, austria, swiss, available for all the team ans able to tell us what balls is played by the german or the swedish lanes on one lane and able to explain us how to prepare the ball.

During the competition, I played with a japanese player. He obtained good results on a lot of lane but took 7 each time on 2 or 3 lane on eternit and it's probably due to a problem of balls. I explained to him with my low expreiment than a maier classic 3 was probably better than klickers on middle hill and blitz on eternit and I would be happy if a german or a swedish player explained me my mistake when I Played the looping. Another exemple, The swedish and the german ball on blitz was very good. It was not so esay to ask the name of the balls during the training to use the same. I ask to Peter Nordin at the end of the competition and he give me an answer but it will be easier for everybody if there are special coaches for all the small nations on the lane able to help us

Philippe