At the Dynamic Billard European Championships for Youth at the Golden Tulip Jagershorst Hotel in Leende, The Netherlands, the final medals have been awarded today. Kristina Tkach (Girls), Jan van Lierop (U19) and Sanjin Pehlivanovic (U17) have earned the Gold Medals in the 9-ball individuals while Team Germany took the U19 Team Gold and Team Finland took the U17 Team Gold.
Jan van Lierop, Kristina Tkach and Sanjin Pehlivanovic
The final match in the U19 was filled with excitement and a thrilling encounter to watch. Jan van Lierop (NED) and Fedor Gorst (RUS) crossed swords on a very high level. They both took racks in turn and the match was kept open for a long time. A prediction as to who could win the match was almost impossible. In the final stage, van Lierop got to the hill first and took a 7:6 lead over Gorst. The Russian was at the table in rack 14 but he ran out of position due to bad positional play. He tried to play a safety shot but left the balls makable for van Lierop who took his chance and went for the Gold Medal, winning the match with 8:6 over disappointed Fedor Gorst.
Top Eight U19
1. Jan van Lierop (NED)
2. Fedor Gorst (RUS)
3. Aleksa Pecelj (SRB)
Joey Haegmans (NED)
5. Pascal Kettenhummer (AUT)
Tony Da Costa (FRA)
Kevin Schiller (GER)
Ante Sola (CRO)
In the U17 division, three out of four finals in the individuals were played between Wiktor Zielinski (POL) and Sanjin Pehlivanovic (BIH). Zielinski took the straight pool while Pehlivanovic took the 8-ball. Today, the 9-ball would be their personal decider. That was the setup before the match. And the tension was risen to the max. They went hill-hill which underlines how equally strong they are. Today, Pehlivanovic had the better end on his side winning the 9-ball title with 7:6 in the final match over Zielinski.
Top Eight U17
1. Sanjin Pehlivanovic (BIH)
2. Wiktor Zielinski (POL)
3. Anton Hastedt (GER)
Uladzislau Shopik (BLR)
5. Stanislav Akhtiamov (RUS)
Manuel Butschek (AUT)
Dmitrii Shkudov (RUS)
Ole-Kristian Rudshavn (NOR)
The final match in the girls division once more was a clear affair. Kristina Tkach (RUS) was up against her teammate Valeriia Trushevskaia (RUS). Yesterday, Trushevskaia had Tkach on the verge of defeating her. Today, she had no chance. Tkach played clearly stronger than her opponent and won the final match with an impressive result of 6:1 over Trushevskaia.
Top Eight Girls
1. Kristina Tkach (RUS)
2. Valeriia Trushevskaia (RUS)
3. Alara Gaffari (TNC)
Darya Siranchuk (UKR)
5. Palina Chernik (BLR)
Michelle Sandman (NOR)
Anna Riegler (AUT)
Viktoriia Gurova (RUS)
Team Germany was the defending Champion in the U19 and they met Team Poland in the final. The Polish team had a small advantage from the beginning since Kamil Szaszor took the 7:4 from Patrick Hofmann. This point was badly missed by the German team. In 8-ball, Leon Kohl had a comfortable 5:2 lead over Mateusz Zdziech. At that time, the 9-ball match between Kevin Schiller and Daniel Maciol went to the extremes. Maciol took the first lead at 4:1. Then Schiller turned the tide in the match and took a 7:5 lead himself in a race to 8. The pressure was on. But Schiller could not finish the match. It got to 7:7. Then, a mistake from Maciol helped Schiller to win the match 8:7 and tie the team match for Germany 1:1. Leon Kohl needed two more racks in 8-ball which he easily collected and won the 8-ball match 7:4 to keep the title in Germany for another year.
Top Eight Teams U19
1. Germany
2. Poland
3. Russia
The Netherlands
5. North Cyprus
Finland
Slovakia
Italy
The final match in the U17 Teams turned out to become a thriller. Team Finland met Team Poland. Wiktor Zielinski took the first point for team Poland very quickly, destroying Karo Langstroem 7:0 in 9-ball. Things looked bright again for the Polish team. However, Jere Virtaranta managed to level the match in winning the 10-ball 6:3 over Tomasz Krysztofik. The decision had to come in the 8-ball match. Szymon Kural played against Micke Stroem. The match went along pretty even with both players keeping a foot in the door in the match. After 9 racks, Szymon Kural went on the hill and took a 5:4 lead over Stroem. But the Finish player demonstrated nerves of steel. Kural broke rack 10 and had no ball down. That was the last time he was seen at the table. Stroem ran out rack 10 and levelled the match at 5:5. Then he broke rack 11, had a ball down and completed another rack to win the 8-ball match 6:5 and take the title to Finland.
Top Eight Teams U17
1. Finland
2. Poland
3. Denmark
Germany
5. The Netherlands
Russia
Austria
Bulgaria
Over the whole competition, Russia clearly won the medal table with 5 Gold, 2 Silver and one Bronze. Germany came in second and Bosnia & Hercegovina became third place. A total of 52 medals have been awarded in the different disciplines and divisions.
Final medal table after 5 of 5 events:
This concludes the coverage of the Dynamic Billard European Championships for Youth at the Golden Tulip Jagershorst Hotel in Leende, The Netherlands. We will be back with more pool billiards starting on Thursday with the Dynamic Billard Dutch Open Euro-Tour.
The event was hosted by the European Governing Body for Pool, the European Pocket Billiard Federation (EPBF) and organized by International Billiard Promotion (IBP). For further information and reference please go to the federation website www.europeanpoolchampionships.eu, visit us on Facebook or check out our youtube channel for regular news clips or contact our press office [email protected].