2012 Euro Report
Welcome to this years report from the European Championships in Merida, Spain. We have produced several video diaries, but due to some technical transfer problems, we are unable to show all of our reports at this time. We have, however, managed to upload our first interview with England's joint manager Mark Addy, recorded on Thursday afternoon. At present there are another 4 diaries covering Thursday and Friday which are not behaving themselves when it comes to downloading from Spain! We shall, of course, include this on our return to England. In the meantime we shall try to give a brief run down of the final two days of practice... Thursday and Friday.
There is now a report for Saturday available below, as well as the team and individual results.
Assuming the interview with Mark Addy comes up, it will describe Thursday's session more clearly, in the meantime we shall endeavour to give a brief overview of it and the final and official day of practice, as precisely as possible below.
Thursday and Friday were two contrasting days. Thursday began with a stiff breeze and overcast conditions for the first part of the morning. Friday by comparison started in a blaze of sunshine with a light breeze drifting across the river, left to right. This would prove crucial to bleak.
Thursday saw good catches of bleak in the early stages following by a switch to pole and slider for many, apart from people like Will Raison who managed to keep them coming for the whole four hour period and weigh in over 13 kilos... that was the exception from what we were able to see. The average was between 6 and 8 kilos. The place to be, overall, was in the low numbered boxes (1-6), which would constitute Section A on both match days. This if our memory serves us correctly was similar to the World Champs in 2010, due partly to it's isolation from the remainder of the match length.
Previous weights from the beginning of practice week had seen carp and carrasio make up bags to 30 kilos. But while weights took a dip on Thursday due to the inconsistent weather, Friday pushed them right back up, with Belgium leading the way from Box 1. While we have no conclusive idea of their particular returns, we can say categorically that from the hour we spent there with them, we were kept busy with our cameras, sometimes with three elastics bottoming out at a time!
Friday also saw a rare occurrence with, perhaps, two of this century's greatest teams, drawing side by side in boxes 22 and 23. To say this was a moment to savour would be an understatement, if for no other reason that both teams would not have to travel far to keep tabs on each other, this contest proved an anti-climax with honours probably shared! We have a rare snapshot of an informal get together of both teams, which we shall post on the site next week. No blood was spilt in this photo!!!
Here is an interesting development regarding Italy. Three of their bank runners are as follows: Falsini, Gabba and Fini... apparenty due to a new Italian Federation ruling that states that each team for the major championships must be different. That effectively means that the Czech Republic will see our illustrious runners form the backbone of the 'Azzurri' contingent. Don't be fooled into thinking that Italy is putting out a third rate side for these Champs, far from it. With the likes of Falsini, Gabba and Fini in the runners lane, the team will have few equals when it comes to competing on this level. We'll bring you more on this team selection later in our coverage.
Because of our connection and download difficulties, we shall have more next week when we are back on a more stable computer connection. We apologise for the lack of video diaries but asure you that every effort is being made to get these online as soon as possible. In the meantime we have Thursdays interview with Mark Addy, which we hope you find interesting. We will of course get the results of the first day to you as soon as possible tomorrow evening.
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