World's for nations without Sweden and Spain

VIERSEN - The three-cushion World championship for nation teams will be played this year with sixteen teams instead of 24. The tournament, in the Festhalle in Viersen (Germany), is on the calendar from 22 to 25 February. The top players missing due to the reduced field are Torbjörn Blomdahl, Dani Sánchez and Marco Zanetti. The World championship will again be played according to the Scotch double system. The Koreans defend the title they achieved with Sung-Won Choi and Jae-Guen Kim. This year the nrs. 1 and 2 for Korea will play: Sung-Won Choi and Dong-Koong Kang.

The best-known and most successful teams that belong to the sixteen teams of two players field are South Korea, Belgium, the Netherlands, Turkey and Germany. The new teams compared to last year are Vietnam, Ecuador and Lebanon.

For the European teams, the seven teams of the ranking after the European championship in Brandenburg 2017 are appointed for Viersen. For the moment, the official CEB Rules, for all UMB competitions, are:

« Decisive for the participation is the number of places which are at disposal of the CEB and the standings which have been reached at the corresponding competition of the CEB.

The team line-ups are:

South Korea: Sung-Won Choi and Dong-Koong Kang

Turkey: Semih Sayginer and Tayfun Tasdemir

The Netherlands: Dick Jaspers and Jean Paul de Bruijn

Belgium: Frédéric Caudron and Jef Philipoom

Germany: Martin Horn and Ronny Lindemann

France: Jérome Barbeillon and Cédric Melnytschenko

Austria: Arnim Kahofer and Andreas Efler

Vietnam: Nguyen Quock Nguyen and Quyet Chien Tran

Greece: Nikos Polychronopoulos and Dionisis Tsokontas

Denmark: Tonny Carlsen and Thomas Andersen

Egypt: Sameh Sidhom and Mohamed Abdin

Ecuador: Luis Aveiga and Javier Teram

Peru: Guido Sacco and Ramon Rodriguez

Colombia: Fernando Diaz and Robinson Morales

Japan: Nobuyasu Sakai and Yusuke Mori

Lebanon: George Ltief and Yaser Shehayeb

The teams which are not invited are Sweden (Blomdahl), Spain (Sánchez), Italy (Marco Zanetti), Portugal (Rui Costa) and further Czech Republic, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Argentina, Hungary, Germany B and the Netherlands B.

The final of last year was a match between South Korea and Belgium. The Netherlands and France were the losing semi-finalists.

The group format for this year:

Group A:
Belgium
France
Japan
Lebanon

Group B:
The Netherlands
Austria
Egypt
Ecuador

Group C:
South Korea
Denmark
Greece
Vietnam

Group D:
Turkey
Germany
Colombia
Peru

The podium last year with South Korea, Belgium, France and the Netherlands