French Breakthrough!
2007-02-08
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The International Racketlon Federation hereby makes official another two Challenger Events for 2007:

The tournament in Montreal (Enter here!) is set to become the first ever Racketlon tournament in a French-speaking area. (Montreal is the biggest French-speaking city in North America.) And it has great potential given the size of racket sport in the region.

The Pacific Rim Open on the Canadian west coast became the first ever FIR Challenger Event when it was organised for the first time last year (see report) and is now (according to tournament management) expected to grow by about 50% in terms of the number of participants, which would mean about 100 participants or a tournament of "full" European size.

Together with the upcoming Candian Open in Toronto (one of only four Super World Tour Events on the 2007 tour!) these two challengers mean that Canada will have three world ranking events this year - an exception from the general rule of max 2 world ranking events per country. The FIR have made this exception to support the growth of Racketlon in North America that still have very few Racketlon tournaments compared to Europe. It is also motivated by the geographical vastness and cultural diversity of Canada. (Quebec is indeed in some contexts considered a country on its own similar to England and Scotland in the UK.)

Canadian Racketlon has been growing at great speed since the inaugural Canadian Open in March 2004 and the tournament in Montreal should bring in enough new players to establish Canada (beside Sweden and Belgium) as one of the top three(!) biggest Racketlon countries in the world (in terms of the number of players on the world ranking; see present nationality count). To grasp the next opportunity to be a part of this thrilling Canadian Racketlon development enter the upcoming Canadian Open through the Racketlon.com Entry Engine (registration is a simple one minute process that immediately puts your name on the on-line entry list; no reason to hesitate since cancellation is just as easy - provided that it is done before entry deadline).

For more details on these tournaments, please turn to the EVENTS section.

Challenger Events count for the world ranking (prestige factor 0,5) but not for the World Tour Race. For a general introduction to Challenger Events and a continuously updated Challenger calendar, see this page. Additional Challenger Events during 2007 are to be expected and will be announced on Racketlon.com as they emerge. Stay tuned!

/H

 

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