GREAT HATTRICK FOR PARIOLI

The pre-tournament favourites did it again. Sincere congratulations go to the Parioli-Angelini team from Rome, Italy on winning the European Champions Cup for the 3rd time running. They won last year in Barcelona and two years ago in their home town Rome. Even more sincere congratulations go to the anchor pair of the team: Lorenzo LAURIA, the current world number one player, and his partner Alfredo VERSACE. They have achieved the unique performance of winning all four European Champions Cups contested so far, as they also won in Warsaw playing for Allegra Lavazza Torino. The other four winners are: Fulvio FANTONI, Claudio NUNES, Antonio SEMENTA and Francesco ANGELINI.

The match was virtually decided in the second quarter. The Italians scored 46 imps in 7 boards, then missed a grand slam that gave the Danish 11 imps back only to double strike again on the next two boards to make it 71-11 in 10 boards. From then on, it really looked all over.

The winners of the silver medal thus are: Dorthe, Peter and their son Martin SCHALTZ, Mathias Bruun, Søren CHRISTIANSEN and Peter FREDIN, their Swedish team member. Very well done by them too until the Italians came…who will ever beat them as long as they continue playing like they are doing at the moment?

The play-off for the bronze was won by another Italian participant: Allegra from Turin. They led Istanbul’s Besiktas team by 52 after 24 of the scheduled 36 boards and thus won easily by 40 imps.

Two more play-offs had been going on today: one for 5th place and the last money prize, and one for the more dubious honour of finishing 9th. The former play-off was by far the most tense affair of the day. Näsby from Sweden took an early lead which they lost again in the second session to trail by two imps. When the smoke cleared after 12 more boards, the Netherlands Modalfa team led by 3 imps and thus finished 5th in the event.

In the play-off for 9th place between BCOB Brussels and Gromov from Moscow the hosts took a lunchtime lead of 40. During the afternoon’s play the Russians recouped half their deficit until just before the end, when a big swing to the Belgians almost completely restored their lunchtime margin. So well done, Modalfa and BCOB.

The 4th European Champions’ Cup was held at the Hotel Métropole, in Brussels, Belgium, 13-16 October 2005. The top ten contenders of the European Team Championship 2004, held in Malmö, Sweden were invited to participate: Italy, Sweden, Poland, Russia, England, The Netherlands, Turkey, Germany , Denmark and France. The format was a round-robin qualifier, followed by semifinals and a final and playoffs.

This was the second event of the competition which was revived in 2002 in Warsaw, Poland with the above format. The winners of this event were Italy, followed by Israel and Norway.

The European Champions’ Cup competition was originally tried under the support of PHILIP MORRIS in the eighties. The ‘Europa Cup’ addressed the winners of the national club championship in each EBL country. Every two years, the winners of neighbouring countries met in a qualifying stage, with the top ones advancing to the European final. The competition was discontinued in 1988, and gave way to another championship that was established in 1990 as a biennial event: the European Mixed Championships.