RANDERS - The world championship in Randers, Denmark, will be launched next Tuesday, 26th of November, for the 72nd global title tournament in three cushion discipline. The first was in Reims in 1928 with the Egyptian Edmond Soussa as the winner. There were 29 different winners in the history of the World championship, the Belgian legend Raymond Ceulemans is the record holder with 21 titles. In Randers, the Dutchman Dick Jaspers defends his world title. The tournament is played with 48 players: the world champion, 16 seeded players according to the world ranking, supplemented with 13 players from the CEB (Europe), 8 from America, 6 from Asia, 2 from Africa and 2 wildcard players from Denmark. In total 22 nationalities.
Seven world champions come into action at the Vaerket cultural center in Randers: Torbjörn Blomdahl, Dick Jaspers, Dani Sánchez, Eddy Merckx, Marco Zanetti, Semih Sayginer and Sung-Won Choi. The World championship is being organized for the third time in Denmark with a record number of tv coverage, including 40 hours of live broadcasts.
The tv and internet history of the World championships was marked by a huge boost eleven years ago with the start of Kozoom, which first appeared at the World championship in Lausanne in 2009. The world champions since that year, (Kasidokostas in Lausanne, Sánchez in Sluiskil, Jaspers in Lima, Merckx in Porto, Caudron in Antwerp, Choi in Seoul, Blomdahl in Bordeaux, Sánchez in Bordeaux, Caudron in Santa Cruz and Jaspers in Cairo) came more into the spotlights than ever before.
Kozoom founder Xavier Carrer arrives in Randers these days with a 15 people team from Kozoom International, including MBC Sports TV (live in Korea). Ten people for the production of international live streaming on Kozoom. Danish tv is ready to start for the biggest three-cushion project ever.
A total of 15 to 18 cameras will record the matches in the arena, with live broadcasts in two countries: Denmark and Korea. Kozoom is covering the event in around 50 countries, the recorded broadcasts on Eurosport can be seen in 80 countries. The total number of viewers is estimated at 5 million (tv, internet, social media).
The seeded players according to the world ranking are:
Dick Jaspers (Netherlands)
Marco Zanetti (Italy)
Tayfun Tasdemir (Turkey)
Semih Sayginer (Turkey)
Eddy Merckx (Belgium)
Jae-Ho Cho (Korea)
Quyet Chien Tran (Vietnam)
Sameh Sidhom (Egypt)
Murat Naci Coklu (Turkey)
Jérémy Bury (France)
HaengJik Kim (Korea)
Martin Horn (Germany)
Jung-Han Heo (Korea)
Torbjörn Blomdahl (Sweden)
Myung-Woo Cho (Korea)
Sung-Won Choi (Korea)
Dani Sánchez (Spain).
The group formats:
Group A: Dick Jaspers, Ahmd Abdallah, Dustin Jäschke
Group B: Marco Zanetti, Thomas Andersen, Wan Young Choi
Group C: Tayfun Tasdemir, Jose Juan Garcia, Javier Teran
Group D: Semih Sayginer, Arnim Kahofer, Barry van Beers
Group E: Eddy Merckx, Yusuke Mori, Rui Manuel Costa
Group F: Jae-Ho Cho, Duc Anh Chien Nguyen, Juan Carlos Del Salto
Group G: Quyet Chien Tran, Rubén Legazpi, Jacob Sörensen
Group H: Sameh Sidhom, Mohamed Abdin, Gwendal Maréchal
Group I: Murat Naci Coklu, Nikos Polychronopoulos, Tatsuo Arai
Group J: Jérémy Bury, Pedro Gonzalez, Jan Ales
Group K: HaengJik Kim, Erick Tellez, Yasser Shehayeb
Group L: Martin Horn, Dion Nelin, Mauricio Gutierrez
Group M: Jung-Han Heo, Lütfi Cenet, Javier Vera
Group N: Torbjörn Blomdahl, Roland Forthomme, Alessio D'Agata
Group O: Myung-Woo Cho, Nguyen Quoc Nguyen, Christian Hernandez
Group P: Sung-Won Choi, Dani Sánchez, Michael Nilsson.
The first matches start on Tuesday, November 26 at 12 noon, the last group match will be on Thursday at 11 am, the finals on Saturday 30 November
Kozoom founder Xavier Carrer behind the camera at one of the first WC covered by Kozoom