Team competitions traditionally conclude with European Championships and how exciting they again became.
In the girls’ division, the pre-favorite cloak was on the shoulders of Austria, taking into account individual successes (2 gold and 1 bronze for the team members) and after a strong start, the team took the lead against the Russian team. Lena Primus already led 4-1 in 8-ball when her opponent, Aleksandra Guleikova, got her game going and finally rose to a 5-4 victory after exciting stages.
The gold medal was then decided between Anna Riegler of Austria and Varvara Voronina of Russia, who played 9-ball. In this match, too, the Austrian Riegler took a strong 4-2 lead and at this point it really looked like both matches would clearly go to the Austrians favour. However, Voronina managed to hang out in the match and eventually won the last four racks and thus the gold medal and the magnificent trophy travels to Russia.
Girls division, Team Russia
In the U17 series, Poland and Germany reached the final as some had expected. Only 13-year-old German Felix Vogel carried his team towards the championship when he won the 9-ball silver medalist Sambor Stachowiak with a score of 6-3. In the 9-ball, the fresh European champions Dominik Jastrzab and Eric Mattern faced but their match was not over (Poland led 6-5) as in the 10-ball Germany’s Dennis Laszkowski defeated Wiktor Fortunski by 6-4 and Germany took the gold medal.
U17 division, Team Germany
The U19 series almost saw a surprise when Team Belarus, Nikita Paluyan & Aliaksei Remez, played their way to the semi-finals with only two players, but it finally was the Polish team who defeated the Belarussians in an exciting deciding rack.
In the final, therefore, Poland and Finland were to decide about the gold. The Finnish team played with one player from the U17 series and two from the U19. Young Leevi Auresto got a lesson in 10-ball from Oskar Jamorski with a score of 7-1 and when Szymon Kural won the 9-ball match against Arseni Sevastyanov also clearly 8-3, Michal Urbanski & Eetu Hirvenheimo, who played 8-ball, got their game closed. This secured Poland their fourth gold medal of the event.
U19 division, Team Poland
The event came to an end after the team matches with Poland winning the medal table with 4 gold, 5 silver and 3 bronze medals. Germany comes second and Austria as third.
All photo © EPBF