BRANDENBURG AN DER HAVEL - The most coveted title at the European championship was for Torbjörn Blomdahl, another important gold medal and the highest position on the European podium was for the Dutch team in the final weekend. Dick Jaspers and Raimond Burgman battled it out with two traditional competitors in a prestigious fight. The Dutch team, defending the title, was the winner.
The audience in the Stahlpalatz in Brandenburg an der Havel applauded for two great champions on the penultimate day: Dick Jaspers and Raimond Burgman, who defeated the two Belgians, the eternal rival in billiards and all kinds of sports. Jaspers won against Caudron 40-30 in sixteen. Burgman then could stop his match when he made the 31th point against Forthomme: 33-31 in 21.
The Dutch team mates may call themselves the European champions for the next two years. Dick Jaspers and Raimond Burgman were this year's defending champions and had qualified easily for the final.
Torbjörn Blomdahl, who came to see the final, made a nice preview backstage before the game on centre court. ,,The match is really unpredictable: Dick Jaspers is a man with two faces, who can make thirty points in three, four innings. The other Dick is thoughtful, watching all the positions, waiting for the stroke. Frédéric Caudron is always in high speed around the table, he sees no danger, but since a few weeks he lost more matches than he’s used to in his better days.’’
The Dutch success in the final match already popped up in the first part of the two matches, when Jaspers with a run of seven just before the break took the lead 21-13. Burgman scored a seven at the same time and ran out to 20-11. The margin of 8 and 9 points (17 over two matches) was the basis for the later gold, however Forthomme was fighting back (to 29-29), but Jaspers kept the gap with Caudron: 36-25, 39- 29 and 40-30 at the end.
Then Burgman only needed one more point to score the championship point.
The final match between Dick Jaspers (r) and Frédéric Caudron.
The Belgians were superior in the group stage and faced the most opposition in the quarter finals by the Belgian A-team with Eddy Merckx and Eddy Leppens with a thrilling match between Caudron and Merckx.
The preliminaries in the nations tournament started with eight teams for eight places in the quarters. Most surprising was the elimination of Sweden after the loss against the Spanish B team, that was beaten later in the group by the Germans.
A Norwegian team, from a developing country with twenty billiard players, made its debut at a European championship. The two players, Özcan Gazi and Markus Kotvojs were pretty satisfied with a final average of 0.490.
The major news on the final days was announced by CEB-president Wolfgang Rittmann: the European championship will be organized again in Brandenburg an der Havel in two years and possibly even also in 2019. ,,We made an agreement with all federations for an additional contribution, because we really want to continue this championship as it stands now'', said the president, who already summarized the tournament on Saturday as a very successful event. ,,We all know that it is very important for the billiard sport and for our youth players that they were here and are excited about the organization.''
The tournament continues comes to its last day on Sunday with three finals. The ladies play for the title with the Dutch Therese Klompenhouwer as fivefold champion and title defender at this European championships. The main competitors are the Dutch Karina Jetten, Danielle le Bruyn from Belgium and Turkish Gülsen Degener.
The world champion was not in trouble in her first match, facing the Danish Jeanette Jensen (25-16 in 23) and was pretty satisfied about her form. ,,I don't feel that good already since the Luxor World Cup, where I became ill. I still have some problems, but the form should be good enough.''
She considers Karina Jetten as her main competitor at this championship and also mentions the young Turkish player Guzin Karakasli. ,,She is one of the upcoming, young talents in three cushion.''
The last three rounds will be played on Sunday: the quarter finals at 9.00 pm, the semi-finals at 12.00, the final at 15.00.
The artistic players also show up on Sunday with three rounds, starting with the quarterfinals. The final session will be battled with eight seeded players and eight players from the preliminaries.
The seeded players are Eric Daelman (Belgium), Werner Grewatsch (wildcard, Germany), Jean Reverchon (France), Thomas Ahrens (Germany), Michaël Hammen (France), Serdar Gümüs (Turkey), Erik Vervliet (Belgium) and Erik Vijverberg (Netherlands).
The balkline players came to the table for the quarter finals on Saturday morning with Raymund Swertz, Thomas Nockemann, Raul Cuenca and Dave Christiani who qualified for the semi-finals this evening.
Swertz was the best winner in the quarters in the match against Patrick Niessen, whom he left far behind in one inning (200-7). Thomas Nockemann was the best in the final stage against Adam Baca (200-191 in 3), Raul Cuenca defeated Nicolas Gerassimopoulos 200-82 in 8 and Dave Christiani finished it off with a big margin against Marek Faus (200-30 in 5).
The semi-finals:
Christiani-Nockemann
Swertz-Cuenca.