The Best Racketlon Tournament Ever Played

The Best Racketlon Tournament Ever Played?
Date: 2001-09-29
_________________

One week before application deadline it is now the clear and outspoken goal of the World Open management team to make Gothenburg Racketlon World Open the best racketlon competition ever played - in terms of the quality of the elite class.

Realistic? - Let's look at the facts:

1) The Swedish Racketlon Elite have Already Registered

27 people have now registered for the Men´s Elite class including everybody except number 5 and 6 on the Swedish top ten list:

1 Magnus Eliasson
2 Mats Källberg
3 Roland Helle
4 Peter Bittár
(5 Erik Söderberg)
(6 Joakim Sandberg)
7 Mika Hasmats
8 Stefan Larsson
9 Rickard Persson
10 Anders Rickan

Among the other people that have registered are several names new to racketlon and since they go straight into the elite class one gets curious. One of those names looks especially interesting from start; Jens Wahlman has, reportedly, been seen on a top Swedish national level in both badminton and (as a Junior) squash... Watch out, Eliasson!

On the female side 5 people have registered including the top three from the last Swedish Championships:

1 Lilian Druve
2 Marina Finth
3 Sara Heinig

2) International Attention Increasing

We have now started to raise attention on an international level. The website of the international squash magazine Squashplayer (probably one of the most visited squash sites on the internet) has e.g. highlighted Gothenburg Racketlon World Open on their website (see http://www.squashplayer.co.uk/events/eventmn.htm ) and poses the question: Can Squash provide the ultimate racket player ??? Interesting question, indeed.

The International Badminton Federation ( www.worldbadminton.net ) have also shown interest. They are even sending over a French journalist that will take part in Class 1 and report back what is actually going on in Sweden - and possibly investigate if Badminton can provide the ultimate racket player...

Other international sites that link to Racketlon.com include:
The European Tennis Association: http://www.etatennis.com/sites/links/othertennis.htm
Finnish Racketlon: http://www.kortteliliiga.com/linkit.htm
The French Badminton Association: www.badminton.fr
The Danish Badminton Association: www.badminton.dk
Norway's biggest sport portal: http://www.sportalen.no/news/art15.htm
The Oslo Tennis Community (Norway): http://www.oslotenniskrets.no/Linker.html

Sofar, our international marketing campaign has given our website visitors from the following internet domains (the figures represent the number of hits and the percentage of total number of hits respectively):

Commercial (.COM) 375 (34%)
SWEDEN (.SE) 327 (29%)
Unknown (.???) 181 (16%)
Networks (.NET) 85 (7%)
United Kingdom (.UK) 28 (2%)
FINLAND (.FI) 25 (2%)
FRANCE (.FR) 12 (1%)
NORWAY (.NO) 12 (1%)
AUSTRALIA (.AU) 11 (1%)
DENMARK (.DK) 9 (0%)
CANADA (.CA) 5 (0%)
PORTUGAL (.PT) 5 (0%)
SINGAPORE (.SG) 3 (0%)
ITALY (.IT) 3 (0%)
NETHERLANDS (.NL) 3 (0%)
BRAZIL (.BR) 2 (0%)
BELGIUM (.BE) 2 (0%)
Educational (.EDU) 1 (0%)
NEW ZEALAND (.NZ) 1 (0%)
GERMANY (.DE) 1 (0%)
HUNGARY (.HU) 1 (0%)
CHINA (.CN) 1 (0%)
SPAIN (.ES) 1 (0%)
JAPAN (.JP) 1 (0%)
URUGUAY (.UY) 1 (0%)
MALAYSIA (.MY) 1 (0%)

In terms of actual applications our international campaign has sofar generated participants from France and Finland - but we have still not seen the first non-Swedish registration for the Elite Class.

Conclusion

Those are the facts. Our marketing campaign continues and the intensity will increase during the final week before application deadline 5th October. We will focus on Elite Class non Swedish players and especially on the Finnish racketlon elite that have already been presented with a generous offer including participation and accomodation free of charge. (The first ten non-Swedish players that register for the Elite class takes part free of charge anyhow.)

Based on the above we have good hopes of finding a few or several surprise stars that could challenge the (complacent?) Swedish racketlon elite! If you (or someone you know) fit that description - or if you just want more information - send us an e-mail to Gothenburg_Racketlon@Hotmail.com right away. Why hesitate to find out if you are a top international racketlon player?

_________________________________