Team Event Added to World Open
Date: 2002-08-30
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Yet another peace of racketlon history will be written in Gothenburg in the beginning of November as it has now been decided that Gothenburg Racketlon World Open (see the invitation under EVENTS on the start page) will contain a tournament for national teams. Never before have national teams faced each other in racketlon.
The team tournament will take place on the first day (Friday 1. November) of the tournament and the preliminary start time for the first team match is 16:00. Team matches will contain four individual racketlon matches for three men and one lady and in true racketlon spirit the winner of the team match will not be the team that wins the most individual matches but the team that wins the most points in total.
Sweden and Finland have already announced their intention to participate. Which, on its own, is set to provide for a media event of unprecedented scale within racketlon as national encounters between Finland and Sweden ("finn fights" - swe: finnkamp - as we Swedes usually call these events when they occur in contexts like athletics or ice hockey) often attract a lot of attention. In addition, there are clear indications that a Scottish team will emerge featuring Phil Reid as captain, a Scotsman that took part in last year's World Open and got so taken by the spirit of racketlon (as captured by a few magic moments when former top international tennis player Magnus "Gusten" Gustafsson acted ball-boy during Phil's match against Gusten's brother) that he went back home to organize the first Scottish Open Racketlon Championships that took place earlier this month. Also, the English have indicated that they will form a strong(!) team and there is hope among some that the French and the Germans will take on the challenge as well. Bulgaria is also known to have an interest in the game of racketlon...
The World Open management team believe that the team event will have a good chance to attract non-Scandinavian players that otherwise would not have entered the tournament; most people agree that there is something irresistable about representing one's country in a national team. Also, if they join the team event international players can be certain that they will get value for money in terms of the number of matches they will get to play. Non-Swedish players are already guaranteed at least three matches in the individual tournament. The team event means at least one additional match per individual. A minimum of 4 racketlon matches over three days is enough for almost anybody.
In fact, tournament management have realized that the match schedule for players that take part in both the team and the individual event might be heavier than some people wish for. Therefore, the following steps have been taken to alleviate the consequences:
- The formats of the tournaments will be chosen so that an
individual player will play a maximum of: (most probably) 2
matches on Friday (the team event); 3 matches on Saturday and 2
matches on Sunday.
- Two or three massage therapists (the NIKKEN method) will be
available free of charge to help players recover.
- For players that take part in the Elite category, tournament
management guarantees at least 12 hours between match starts over
Friday and Saturday night.
No extra fee will be charged for the team event. Participation is included in the fee for the World Open individual tournament.
If your team is not complete yet, we might help you find the right members (e.g. by publishing the contact details for the team captain here on Racketlon.com so that candidates will know who to turn to). Just send an e-mail to Gothenburg_Racketlon@Hotmail.com and we will help you coordinate.
For full details on the team event please refer to the Conditions of Play and the Timeplan for Practicalities.
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