MEDELLIN – The huge interest for the Medellin World Cup from Colombian players has encouraged the UMB (world federation) to open up more places for the qualifying rounds in the so-called PPPQ and PPQ qualifications.
The Medellin World Cup will be held from 4 to 9 November and played in the Coliseo Yesid Santos stadium. Twelve players are automatically seeded, according to the rules: Torbjörn Blomdahl, Frédéric Caudron, Jérémy Bury, Marco Zanetti, Sung-Won Choi, Eddy Merckx, Dick Jaspers, Dani Sánchez, Kyung-Roul Kim, Dong Koong Kang, Lütfi Cenet and Murat Naci Coklu.
The wildcard of the Asian Federation has been given to Jae Ho Cho, the CEB wildcard to Filippos Kasidokostas. Henry Diaz and Alex Lobera received a wildcard of the organization.
The international field consists of 61 players, including Tayfun Tasdemir, Ramon Rodriguez, Javier Palazón, Roland Forthomme, Jae Guen Kim, Choong Bok Lee, Glenn Hoffman, Dave Christiani, Jean Paul de Bruijn, Pierre Soumagne and Arnim Kahofer.
Most of these players enter the tournament in the Pre qualifications and in the final qualifying round.
Dutch players Hofman and Christiani start off in a strong group: Hofman faces Arnim Kahofer, Christiani meets Alexander Salazar, World championship semifinalist in Antwerp.
The total number of players consists of 61 international participants and 85 Colombian qualifiers, which makes it to 146. The inscription closed at 14 October.
The Colombians who are on the list of participants and on the UMB ranking are:
Heriberto Aristizabal (41st), Huberney Catano (43), Carlos Campino (51), Alexander Salazar (56), Cezar Garzon (62), Andres Naranjo (69), Julian Torres (102), Carlos M. Villegas (103), Robinson Morales (110), Julian Morales (118), Andres Lizarazo (274), Mauricio Aguilar (295), Jose Juan Garcia (367), Pedro Gonzalez (529), Arley Castrillon (537), Luis Martinez (599), Eleazar Ramirez (607), Carloman Ortiz (866), Cristian Castano (889), Mauricio Pulido (890), Gabriel Vasquez (891), Jaime Carrasco (892), Andrez Gonzalez (894), Juan Cardenal (918).
The tournament is being broadcast live by Kozoom.