World Champion. At last!
Winner and first official Racketlon World Champion became Magnus Eliasson from Stockholm, Sweden - a former Ice Hockey professional that is now a student of psychology beside his increasingly successful racketlon career. The victory means that Eliasson is expected to replace Finland's Mikko Kärkkäinen as number 1 on the World Racketlon Ranking compiled by the International Racketlon Federation. Kärkkäinen lost already in the quarter final in conjunction with an unfortunate thigh injury, which deprived the audience of a prestigeous World Championship final between the two dominant racketlon players of the world today. Kärkkäinen has played Eliasson on one more occasion since their first encounter in Gothenburg Racketlon World Open a year ago. And he has not yet lost...
First official World Champion on the ladies' side became Lilian Druve from Gothenburg, Sweden, a singer and former national team player in badminton. She won the title after having to compete with e.g. England's Squash World #11 Rebecca Macree and (in the final) Finnish Champion Susanna Näykki-Lautala. Similar to the case on the men's side her victory meant that she is expected to replace Finland's Katja Aminoff as World #1.
The team event, also, ended in victory for the Swedes which made almost complete a revengeful comeback for Swedish racketlon on the international arena that sofar has been dominated by Finland. It was only in the Men's Veteran event that the Finns were able to defend their superiority; Veteran World Champion became Harri Peltola after beating Swedish dominant #1 Olle Benéus in the Final.
About 100 people from eight different nations took part in the World Championships. Besides Finland and Sweden, the two dominant racketlon nations of the World today, there were players from Scotland and England, Germany and France, Norway and Estonia.
The tournament is the latest in a series of Racketlon mile stones passed during the last year, which has become a breakthrough for international Racketlon; Last year's Gothenburg Racketlon World Open was the first tournament in the history of Racketlon with participants from more than one country. Since then there has been international racketlon tournaments in Finland, Scotland, England and now, for a second time, in Gothenburg, Sweden. In addition an International Racketlon Federation has recently been established with currently six member states and still growing.
For more information about Racketlon please turn to www.racketlon.com where e.g. a comprehensive introduction to the game of Racketlon can be found (look under "THE GAME"). There are also full results from the World Championsips.
For more exclusive information, such as interviews with any of the fresh World Champions or pictures from the event please contact the Gothenburg Racketlon Media Officer at E-mail: Gothenburg_Racketlon@Hotmail.com .