DOUBLE GOLD FOR SUPER RUSSIA!
Nov 8, 2021
Sunday 7th November
DYNAMIC BILLIARD EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS 2021
Venezia Palace Hotel, Antalya, Turkey
MEN’S AND WOMEN’S TEAM EVENTS
DOUBLE GOLD FOR SUPER RUSSIA!
RUSSIA SWEPT THE two gold medals in the team events at the DynamicBilliards European Championships taking place in Antalya, Turkey. FirstRussia’s strong men’s team beat Denmark without losing a match in thefinal and then the ladies’ team sealed a double gold as they beatGermany 2-0.
The Russian ladies’ team consisted of the minimum two players in theshape of the stellar Kristina Tkach and 20 year-old Alexandra Guleikovaand they lost just a single match as they went undefeated through thefield in the format that involves an 8-ball and 9-ball match followed bya shoot-out if it’s tied at 1-1. There were nine countries in totalrepresented in the event.
After seeing off a strong-looking Polish team 2-0 in the semi-final,they emphatically beat Germany 2-0 for the gold. Earlier, Poland haddefeated Germany 2-0 in the last four to relegate the Germans to abronze.
For Kristina Tkach it was her third team medal at the European PoolChampionships while her playing partner, Alexandra Guleikova opened hermedal account with a gold.
Commented Tkach, “I think it was a team effort completely. I knowAlexandra tried her best and I also tried mine and I was counting on hera lot. I was great to win the team gold and I have further chances inthe individual events.
Guleikova added, “It’s a big honour for me. I tried really hard andwanted to play my best and I’m so excited about this!”
Medals – Ladies
Gold – Russia (K. Tkach, A. Guleikova)Silver – Germany (V. Ivanovskaia, I. Kaplan, M. Sussenguth,Bronze – Poland (O. Zalewska, M. Zabek) Sweden (L. Furberg, M. Nguyen, M. Margeta)
In the men’s division, there was more dominance from Russia as they wongold in a strong 22 nation field. The team of EC straight pool champ,Fedor Gorst, experienced veteran Konstantin Stepanov, big-breakingSergey Lutsker and back-up man Andriy Seroshtan was just too strongdespite an unexpected snag on the road to gold.
After beating Switzerland in their opening match, they found themselveson the one-loss side of the bracket after an upset win by Portugal inthe winner’s qualification round. However, they battled back with a winover Norway before they faced a good-looking Dutch team in the lasteight.
Armed with a 2-0 win, Russia then scrapped a 2-1 win over Poland toreach the final where they faced Denmark.
The format features teams with a maximum of five players with only threeplaying in any one match. The games are 8-ball, 9-ball and 10-ball withthe final match not played in the event of a 2-0 win.
The Danes had themselves been dumped into the one-loss side courtesy ofa terrific performance from Northern Cyprus. Wins over Croatia, Finlandand Turkey saw them through to the quarters where they dispatchedPortugal 2-1 before overcoming Germany by a similar scoreline toguarantee silver.
It was the Russians who prevailed though, needing just two wins to gettheir collective hands on the trophy and secure their first team gold inthe history of the championship.
Fedor Gorst, who won his second gold medal of the championships said,“It feels great! Winning the first medal in the team division is alwayssomething special. In my opinion it’s always more pressure when you playin a team.
“Even when the last match is there and you’re tied 1-1 and you have togo and win the decider. Much more pressure than individual matches.We’re all happy though, and we’ll celebrate tonight”
For veteran Konstantin Stepanov it was a proud moment: “We’ve been closeto the gold in the team division but we’ve never won it. I don’t playthat much anymore but I have experience and I still play some good 8ball and I’m so happy for the younger generation because we won thisgold medal altogether with experience and their power. They wanted it somuch.”
Finally, Sergey Lutsker added; “I think we won because we have a reallygood atmosphere in the team. We know each other a lot and practice witheach other and Kosta (Stepanov) teaches us a lot.”
Medals – Men
Gold – Russia – (K.Stepanov, S. Lutsker, F. Gorst, A. Seroshtan)Silver – Denmark (A. Madsen, M. Krause, C. Lentz, J. Thyde)Bronze – Germany (R. Souquet, T. Hohmann, L. Kukherm) Poland (W. Szewczyk, M. Fortunski, D. Maciol, T. Kaplan, M. Skoneczny)
All the matches can be viewed live at www.kozoom.com
Results, live scoring and draw are available at www.epbf.com
Luke Riches on behalf of the EPBF.