Young European Stars Take Clutch of Medals – Alison Chang

ONE GOLD, ONE silver and four bronze medals was the European haul from the WPA Predator World Junior Championships which completed today in Klagenfurt, Austria. The EPBF squad for the championships was selected on the basis of performances at the European Junior Championships which took place Podčetrtek, Slovenia back in July.

There were three divisions contested – Boys Under 17, Boys Under 19 and Girls Under 19 and the sole European gold medal came courtesy of the Netherland’s Yannick Pongers who defeated friend and countryman Mika Van Berkel in a tense Under 19s final.

Pongers, who has a cabinet full of European Junior medals, lead throughout but Van Berkel, sensing he needed to do something fast, came back at him following a couple of Yannick errors, as the match went to hill-hill. Pongers though, saved his best till last as he delivered a confident runout to claim the trophy.

Commented Pongers, “It feels amazing and I’m very happy with this win, especially as it is my last year (as a Junior). It was a very emotional moment. I made some stupid, sloppy mistakes in the middle of the game. I missed two bridge balls and that gave a chance to him and he took it.

“It feels kind of strange to complete my last year as a Junior, it all went so fast. Nine years ago, I started playing and I’ve been playing against youth and sometimes men and now it’s suddenly over. It’s strange but also good that I can now focus on the Men’s only.

“I want to play as many international tournaments as possible and get more experience because I haven’t played internationally that much and I’ll be excited to play them,” he added.

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In the same division, Kledio Kaci, the brother of two-time WPA World Champion Eklent, claimed a bronze medal as he now looks to progress his career in men’s pool. Kaci had earlier defeated Pongers in the Winners’

Qualification round by 7-3 to send him to the one-loss side, but was on the wrong end of a similar scoreline in the semi-final.

In the Under 17s, 13-year-old Slovenian Maks Benko claimed a bronze medal which was a stunning achievement given that he was giving away several years to some of the best players junior players in the world.

Benko, who regularly gets results on the men’s Euro Tour, seems to have the brightest of futures ahead of him.

The Girls Under 19s saw bronze medals for the Netherland’s Jolien Schuurman and Linnea Hjalmarström of Sweden. Both girls enjoyed success at the last two European Junior Championships and are still young enough to compete in further World Junior Championships.