Saturday 15th September.... Paris
by David Ewing

The first day of this World Champs is now over and what a cracker it has been. Not a cracker in terms of the fish caught but in terms of how tight and technical a match it has turned out to be.

Interestingly, of the top 10 teams, 7 are from the former Eastern Block, but the first four - Italy and Yugoslavia both on 41.5 points, France 45 and England 49 leave no doubt that tommorrow is a three horse race.

The fishing today was hard - as expected - but not a lottery. there were two ways to catch for most teams, one was roach fishing on the bottom, running through with 2 - 8 gram bodied floats and the other was bleaking up in the water. There were some bream caught and as expected the end pegs dominated - so USA and the Czech Republic had a section winner each because they drew near the end of a section. For most competitors however the match was about deciding when to fish for bleak and when to fish for the roach. After that, good line control and feeding sorted the pecking order out.

A quick section by section rundown will give you some idea:

Section A
A rock hard section won by American Marc Green (a fitting result given the previous weeks news) which saw a number of blanks. Alan Scotthorne was blanking for much of the match but he caught a decent roach to lift him to 14th in section. Didier Guessard did the least well of the French squad and came in 18th with a couple of bleak, and a poor Italian performance - beaten either side - left them with just 20 points. For all the main teams, this proved the lowest scoring section.

Section B
This section was where Frenchman Diego da Silva thrilled the home crowd - catching a bream of 2.800kg as part of a near 6kg top individual weight. Steve Gardener did well with 7 points thanks mainly to some early and late caught fish.

Section C
Czech international Jan Heidenreich took the honours with 4.850kg but Bob Nudd struggled for 940gr and 9 points from the better end of the section. Jean Desque got 10 points fishing at the poorer end.

Section D
Here Will Raison caught a large roach and a bonus perch that helped lift him to 8th in what proved a mainly bleak section. The section was won by Polish rod Piotr Lorenc took top points with 2.200kg.

Section E
Stuart Conroy did well in the hardest part of the section for 11th place. Trabucco came in 4th with under a kilo of small roach. Ian Leach of Wales off the end peg with a bonus chub in his 2.200kg bag.

Tomorrow it looks like all the English squad are out of individual medal contention. The smart money is on Diego but if he draws in D or E section, where no bream showed at all, then its open house!

Whatever happens, the teams will need to sort out whether they go for roach or bleak first, it will not the same in each section so there will be a lot of discussion done tonight.

To sum it up - hard, but not a lottery. I think this is a technical world champs where the good anglers will come out on top. More on Monday with a full summary after we see how it all pans out, plus loads of pics to mull over. Don't forget the main winners on Sunday at about 6.30 British time.