European championship with new rules

SAINT BREVAIN-LES-PINS - The European championship for national teams has been launched this morning under the new rules which are introduced at the last CEB congress in Famagusta. The twenty teams which have to seed during the qualifying or have been seeded in the main event, will not play according to the setsystem but to thirty caroms (qualifications) and forty (main tournament) with a time limit of forty seconds.

The Salle de l'Etoile de Jade in Saint Brevin-les-Pins, a tourist town on the Loire in western France, welcomes a mixed company from today until Sunday. A lot of top players will compete for the title, but also many relatively unknown players.

Today (from 11.00) and tomorrow in the first session, twelve teams duel for four places in the main event. Frédéric Caudron and Peter de Backer (Belgium B) are one of the major contenders to reach the main event. They have to beat Sweden with Michael Nilsson and David Pennôr.

The European championship was shunned by the top players a few years, but now most of the countries send their top players.  The Belgians Eddy Merckx and Eddy Leppens defend the title which they took in Turkey last year. The strongest opponents are  Turkey A (Lütfi Ceneti, Tayfun Tasdemir), the Netherlands (Dick Jaspers, Raimond Burgman), Germany (Martin Horn, Christian Rudolph), Spain (Dani Sánchez, Ruben Legazpi) and France (Jérémy Bury, Jérôme Barbeillon) .

Tomorrow afternoon (14.00) is the opening of the main event.

The format of the groups is:

Qualifying Rounds:
Group A:
Portugal (Manuel Rui Costa, Joao Pedro Ferreira)
Croatia (Slobodan Soro, Nadir Paulovics)
Montenegro (Danilo Brajovic, Vuk Brajovic)

Group B:
Switzerland (Rene Hendriksen, Torsten Danielsson).
Czech Republic (Ivo Gazdos, Martin Bohac)
Finland (Jussi Tyrkkö, Johannes Kauhanen)

Group C:
Sweden (Michael Nilsson, David Pennör)
Luxembourg (Ramon Hamm, Bryan Tempelers)
Belgium B (Frédéric Caudron, Peter de Backer)

Group D:
Egypt (Sameh Sidhom, Ihab El Messery)
Italy (Emilio Sciacca, Sebastiano Ruocco)
France B (Pierre Soumagne, Cédric Melnytschenko)


MAIN TOURNAMENT:
Group E:
Belgium (Eddy Merckx, Eddy Leppens)
France A (Jérémy Bury, Jérôme Barbeillon)
Team from qualification

Group F:
Turkey (Lüfti Cenet, Tayfun Tasdemir)
Netherlands (Dick Jaspers, iurgman)
Team from qualification

Group G:
Denmark (Thomas Andersen, Lars Dunch)
Germany (Martin Horn, Christian Rudolph)
Team from qualification

Group H:
Spain (Dani Sánchez, Ruben Legazpi)
Austria (Andreas Efler, Herbert Szivacz)
Team from qualification