Carom
NIEUWPOORT - In the country where Raymond Ceulemans was knighted by the king in 2002 and named as Sportsman of the year in Belgium in 1978, billiard players, even when they are the best in the world, apparently are not longer considered as top sporters.
Eddy Merckx, who became world champion individually in Porto this year and world champion by the Belgian team in 2012 as well, was not even nominated for the 30 men who will compete for the title Sportsman of the year in Belgium.
That is a lack of appreciation of the sportsman himself, for sure, but moreover of the sports discipline that was behind football, cycling and basketball one of the most popular sports in this country in earlier years.
,,We have a strong feeling that billiards does not count anymore,'' said Eddy Merckx, after he heard that he was not on the list of thirty nominated athletes. ,,I admire all kinds of athletes who are nominated, but the fact that I am not one of them, with two world titles in one year, I can not believe that.''
On the list of nominations with many football players, cyclists, basketball players and tennis players, there are amongst others three cyclo-cross riders, belonging to a sport which outside Belgium is seen as folklore, like speed skating in the Netherlands.
Moreover, on the Belgian list we find one speed skater, one snowboarder, carabine shooter and the national handball team.
Eddy Merckx: ,,I was 11th in 2006 when I won the world championship in Sankt Wendel. Thereafter, not any billiard player was nominated.''
The Belgian, who last night won a BTS (former VES) tournament with an amazing average (2.424), a record for this tournament series, grabbed the world title three cushion in Porto this year, beating Korean Sung-Won Choi in the final and was crowned as the winner at the world championship for teams in Viersen together with Frédéric Caudron for Belgium.
,,I met people, who told me that a sport lives by the grace of his champions. I think that we have showed that this year, Frédéric Caudron and I, we were the best of the world and won the most important titles.''
He adds: ,,What hurts me is that people say: Raymond Ceulemans and Ludo Dielis succeeded to sell their sport better to the audience. But what can we do: beg to be on TV, come on?''
The title of Sportsman of the Year in Belgium was won last year by the cyclist Philip Gilbert. Kim Clijsters took the title for women.