Carom
SANTIAGO - The new Pan-American champion is named Carlos Campino: he won the final in Santiago against Heriberto Aristizabal last night and dethroned Javier Teran as title holder. In the final sprint Campino from Colombia was the best of all his country fellows, who dominated the tournament with seven men in the last eight.
Carlos Campino entered the final after a long survival race: in the preliminaries he had to pass Jose Torreblanca from Peru and Juan Sisterna of Argentina. Then he came to the knockout stages, where he beat Miguelangel Labrador from Venezuela and his compatriot Robinson Morales.
In the semi-finals Campino got walkover as his opponent Julian Torres was stabbing in the busy traffic of Santiago city, so he couldn't show up unfortunately when the match had to start. That brought Campino without playing to the finals, where, after a difficult start, he defeated Heriberto (Casquilo) Aristizabal.
The Panamerican championship were not that strong as in former years. The Mexicans still suffer the suspension of the world federation and could not take part with players like Luis Avila, Javier Vera, Alan Campos and Rodolfo Covarrubias, the Americans had their own championship poorly planned, the weekend that the Panamericans were held, so that Pedro Piedrabuena, Hugo Patino and Frank Torres couldn't compete Santiago. And other players of fame, such as Ramon Rodriguez and Max Aguirre, were missing.
What remained were particularly the strong Colombians, who gave the prestigious tournament color in their mutual battles.
The Venezuelans took a main prize as well. They won the team championship with Cantan and Romero before Colombia B with Castano and Diaz, Colombia A with Morales and Ortiz, Ecuador with Teran and Rubio and Colombia C with Naranjo and Campino.
The final score with averages of the individual championship:
1 Carlos Campino, 1.250 (Series 12), 2 Heriberto Aristizabal, 186 (13), 3 Julian Torres, 120 (7), 4 Henry Diaz, 103 (12), 5 Pedro Gonzalez, 6 Carl Oman Ortiz, 7 Andres Naranjo, 8 Merlin Romero, 9 Luis Aveiga, 10 Juan Toro.