Erik Tiekstra is the new European Champion
28 Aug 2010 at 19:08 | Published by: Hans | Views: 13169 | News search
Marcel Noack, Erik Tiekstra and Rupert Westenthal all medalists in the mens category. (Photo by Hans Bergström 2010)
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Erik Tiekstra, The Netherlands is the new European Champion. He won in the final over Marcel Noack from Germany with a 5-1 margin.
Erik did not at all have a easy journey to the final. In the first match he meet the Italian home favorite Rudi Giroldini. Then he won a strange match over Harald Erlbruch with incredible 5-0. In the quarter finals he meets the older brother Erlbruch in what was to be the "talk of the day" match.
With three lanes to go Walter was 1 up on Erik. Then the wind came and Walter waited for a very long time to play (more than 4 minutes) on lane two on concrete. The referees gave Walter a Time penalty and since this was the second one for Walter it meant that the lane was "given" to Erik without he needed to play it. When Erik understood this he was cheering quite load and that was seen as unsportsmanlike by the Germans. Erik tried apologizing for this after the match and he said in an interview that it was a heat of the moment thing.
Walter made a two on lane 5 on Beton and when Erik aced it he was one up with the last lane to play. Another ace on lane 12 gave him the victory, at least so did all think. But the Germans decided to leave a protest to the referee decision on lane two. After about twenty minutes the jury had decided not to agree on the protest and Erik was officially the winner.
In the semifinal he meets the Hungarian star Csaba Palinkas that was beating the German start Achim Braungart –Zink in the quarter finals. This semifinal was a tight match between two nations never had won a big Championship in General Class individually before. At the end Erik was the winner by 4-3.
On the other half Marcel Noack started the day by winning a really thrilling duel with young Swede John Widlert. This match was tied and Marcel won in sudden death. In the semifinal he meet the Austrian Cup-play specialist Rupert Westenthaler and won 4-2.
The final was Erik’s all from the beginning. He played almost perfect and Marcel could not really keep up with the pace from Erik. Erik won by 5-1 and secured the first ever individual European Championships title for the Netherlands in the general class.
The Bronze match was won by Rupert Westenthaler on the second sudden death lane leaving the Hungarians without the really wanted medal.
As many of our reader have noticed during the day the Organizers didn’t got the Result Service online from the Match play working, so we also have had the not working links on our site today. This is of course not acceptable but not much we could do and we apologize for that.
Soon we will also report on the ladies and present more photos and also winner interviews on film if Internet works. So stay tuned!
» The Results Site from the Organisers
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