The venue
also very much
suited the style of
the Italians,but in
a game this tight
the 5.5 points
difference from
the first day was
hard to gain back
on day 2.

It will be
silver this year
for Italy.

Consistency rules,

England
will always be one
of the favourites
on a venue like this
and their performance
showed this.

Every peg

was different and
their individual depth

of experience made
them a team which
was very hard to beat.

The individual
silver medal went to
Ireland's Cathal Hughes
(pictured right)
with a section win and
a second over the
2 days.

The whole team went
early to the venue to
practice and this strategy
clearly paid off for
both team and
individual.

The gold medal was for
Luxembourg’s Frank Meis
who scored a perfect
2 points over the 2 days
with double section
wins.

Bulgaria’s
Rumen Vitkov
had a perfect day 1
comfortably winning A section
with 15.485Kg.

Day 2 was a bit special
this saw Rumen 2 pegs away
from gold medallist Frank Meis
and with Italy’s Gianluigi Sorti
between them....

….and it was Rumen
who took the vital 2 points
and the Individual
bronze medal.

Jamie Masson
just gets better
year after year.

Scotland’s top angler
moved up a notch this year
with a 5th individual placing
completely winning the
whole match on day 2
with 18.860 Kg
from peg A8,

....the highest weight
of the championships.

Always in
fierce contention for the title,

England’s Alan Scotthorne
posed a constant threat
to all anglers in his section
his usual solid performance
over the championship
made him England’s top scorer
and the main contributor
towards another
team gold.

After a
blistering performance
and a section win on day 1
Wales’s Ian Hughes went into
the second day with high
hopes of a medal.

But it was
tight at the top of A section
2 good results from the other end
and  England’s Stu Conroy on the next peg pushed Ian into 4th place
in the section and
7th individual
overall.

A consistent

performance by
Ireland gave them
a fantastic overall
4th place,but this was
still 9 points adrift from bronze medallists
the Netherlands
a big difference
at this level.

The team
will only learn from this
and build on their
experiences.

Top of the bunch
from the middle of the section
on day 1 gave Scotland’s
Brian Clark a good
3 point score.

Day 2 was
a far better result.
From the wrong end of the section
Brian conjured up a fantastic
13.130 Kg again for 3 points,
he just could not compete with
other end of the section, but for this
he could have been in
the medals.

Consistent
Jozsef Varga was
Hungary’s top scorer
at the hardest end of
the section on day 1
Jozsef  did very well
to get 4 points.

On day 2 he
made the most of
the end peg to
win the section
with 9.700 Kg
and 1 point.

Two
solid performances
gave England’s Des Shipp
a championship total
of 7 points and a
team gold medal.

With depths
varying enormously
from peg to peg and the
deeper pegs producing
the larger bags of fish
you just had to use all
your experience to
grind out a result.

This could

have easily been
Scotland’s year..

...brilliant
day 1 performance
finishing 2nd with 26 points..

...a couple of difficult areas
on day 2 knocked their overall
consistent performance
to a final 5th place –
their highest WC
placing to date.

Alain Dewimille’s
(pictured right) 9 points
and Didier Delannoy’s
8 points were the
highlight for team France
in what was a difficult
championship.

They will
be disappointed with
their 13th overall position
which was not one of
their best results

....the same could also
be said for Belgium
who came 16th.

Another strong
performance from
the former world champion
Italian Iacopo Falsini helped
secure their teams
silver medal.

Italy will
always be strong
on carp venues and
their 16 point team total
on the second day showed
how they could
come back into
the game.

The
top man
from Slovenia
was Aljosa Kupec
whose 6.235 Kg on day 1
gave him 9 points,

 He made up for this
the next day with
a 3rd in his section
 and 6.310 Kg.

As for
Slovenian team
they came
19th overall.

These were
wild river carp
and once hooked
would immediately roar off
for the middle of the river
stretching the elastic
to its limits.

Here Russian
angler Viacheslav Borisov
has the pole at full length to
try to stop the powerful fish
many were lost as they
could not be stopped or
anglers took too long
to land them.