Gallery Five ... Day 2, the final countdown....

The River Vilaine produced an incredible result for home side France on day one... but will the final day bring them the ultimate prize? Could Belgium upset the French apple cart? Have England let the first days' disaster blunt their appetite for glory?

Above: England's Steve Gardner waits for the signal to begin day two. His first day total of 11 points was short by his standard, could day two bring some consolation?

Above: Belgian 'ace' Eric Di Venti lets fly a 'jaffa' on the pre-baiting signal at peg D2. Eric fished the Bolognese rod on the first day at peg A5 and won the section with 10.500kg. His peg today's peg saw England's Stu Conroy take just 2.900kg from it on day one. Unlike Stu, Eric has decided to fish the pole, instead of the Bolognese or slider... does he have inside information, or is this one of those deep inside pole pegs? Could he repeat Saturday's performance and put himself in that Gold medal slot?... read on!

Right: Sounding a little bit like a space shuttle launch, the signal rocket erupts from the ground, near C section, to start day two proceedings. If you're close at the time and unaware whats going to happen... "what the f***k was that", could be one of your reponses!!!

Below left & right: Russian Oleg Sadomtsev brings to net an decent early bream on C section. Oleg ended the day with 4.340kg which gave him11th place, an improvement on his 23rd place in E section the previuos day. Russia had an indifferent tournament, finishing in 14th place.

Left and below: Channel Islander Graham Carver nets, then displays his first bream from peg C10. Graham was the best of his team, who tipified the commitment and dedication shown by many small countries who regularly attend these championships... unsponsored!

Above left & right & right: England's Darren Cox, under the watchful eye of team manager Mark Addy, strikes into a small bream, which he carefully played and netted, no doubt to Mark's satisfaction.

England had changed their feeding strategy for day two, hopefully to avoid the plague of 'cats' which infested the water. Their basic top up mix was heavy and contained fewer feed particles than the previous day, when they suffered badly from fish which were too small. Darren was replacement for Stu Conroy who'd suffered a mare in D section on day one. His peg, C5, had not produced much the previous day for Czech angler Vaclav Freylich, only 3.180kg for 14th place, so it would be interesting to see what Darren weasle's out of the peg!

Below: Ireland's Willy Wheeler, on C3, was hoping for another good day to go with his day one 4th in section.

Above: New Polish star Grzegorz Mazurczak was in between Darren and Willy, on C4, and would prove their equal as the day wore on.

Right & below: Steve Hemmingray strikes into a small skimmer on B21 which is easily swung in.

Above left & right: Italy's Ferruccio Gabba plays and lands one of the Vilaine's frisky bream. He would be Italy's highest scorer with 18pts.... for an overall 35th individual position, an appalling statistic for one of the world's greatest angling nation's!!!

Left & below: Portugal didn't fair much better overall, finishing just ahead of Italy, but their Mario Baptista was the real Portuguese star, finishing in overall 5th individual spot with 4 penalty points. Here he brings in a skimmer on his way to winning section B with 9.695kg. Did he really use all of those rods???????

Above & below: Netherland's angler Jo Adriolo, plays and eventually loses a big mullet from B23. He may be lacking some of the more flashy bits of equipment but that didn't stop him taking a 6th in the section with 6.315kg.

Above & right: Hans Slegers swings in one of the river's larger 'cats' and finished the day 5th in section with 7.185kg. Hans played a fine supporting role to his three more illustrious Belgian team mates, eventually finishing in a respectable 21st position for the tournament. His solid 13 points was a valuable contribution to his teams overall success.

Left & below: Slovenia's Zeljko Mavric plays and lands a bream on his way to finishing 3rd in section B with 8.375kg. Slovenia is another of the smaller nation's in attendance who feature anglers short on sponsored tackle, but big on committment. They can be justifiably proud of finishing in 8th place overall.

Left & above: Hungarian Jozsef Varga tames a Vilaine bream but finishes down the section in 11th place. Like Italy, Hungary have always looked dangerous, but for some reason this year they've been totally ineffective... both teams will teams to sort things out before Portugal!

Above: Maybe this is were the Italian's went wrong?
Gianluigi Sorti feeds a whip line, on peg B18, at 4/5m for small fish while around him, there are some bigger samples on offer. He was one of only a handful of angler's to fish close in this way and they didn't do mush good either. He's obviously got the kit to go further out but perhaps information received from team mate Ballabeni, who fished off the next peg the day before, may have made Gianluigi too cautious? The venue was tailor made for the Bolognese and slider, techniques strong in Italy's armoury, so why did they flounder when many fancied them for a medal... perhaps we'll never know.

Below: Gianluigi swings in another small 'cat' from a river with ample stocks of bream, skimmers and mullet! This would be on a tornament the Italian's will want to forget!