The 2022 Predator World Junior Youth Championships are set to get underway this week at the Puerto Rico Convention Center in the capital city of San Juan. The four-day event will feature three separate tournaments; Boys Under 19s and Under 17s and Girls Under19s. As usual the European Pocket Billiards Federation will be sending a very strong squad of 17 athletes to Puerto Rico looking to build on the success of last year’s event where they made a clean sweep of the gold medals.
The basis of selection of the European team is through performances at the 2022 European Championships, which took place in Petrich, Bulgaria in August. In addition, all players had to first battle through their respective national championships to make it to the Euros.
Each of the three events has a small field – just 24 players in the U19 and Girls and 32 in the U17s – but the World Junior Championships are a best of the best as each continental federation sends their strongest players, making it an elite field indeed. The format is initially double elimination, moving to single elimination for the closing stages.
Tommi Lamminaho, Team Leader of the European contingent, as well as board member of the EPBF said, “We’re all looking forward to continuing success in Puerto Rico. It’s a beautiful spot to stage the World Championships and I’m sure all our players will certainly enjoy the experience.
“That aside, we’re not here on holiday and the European players have all prepared and are ready to give it their very best in pursuit of medals. Europe has got a terrific track record at the World Juniors and we hope that our team can all perform as we know they can.”
The Players
Under 19s
Yuma Dorner (Germany)
Dennis Laszkowski (Germany)
Yannick Pongers (Netherlands)
Szymon Kural (Poland)
Under 17s
Lazar Kostic (Serbia)
Felix Vogel (Germany)
Mika Van Berkel (Netherlands)
Karl Gnadeberg (Estonia)
Jori Narvola (Finland)
Riku Romppanen (Finland)
Michal Wiech (Poland)
Girls
Lena Primus (Austria)
Dominica Pawelczyk (Poland)
Jolien Schuurman (Netherlands)
Alara Ghaffari (Turkish North Cyprus)
Shirin Volery (Switzerland)
Linnea Hjalmarstrom (Sweden)
Action gets underway on Friday 18th November and concludes on Monday 21st at the impressive venue which is staging a series of high-quality events, culminating in the Predator WPA World 8-Ball Championships.
Further event details including live scoring can be found at the tournament’s Official Site: https://probilliardseries.com/
Once underway, matches can be viewed at www.kozoom.com