Super Saturday
'SUPER' Saturday
The stiff breeze that stirred up the venue also filled the sails on Drennan Team England to put them in pole position after the first day of the Championships, leaving many teams faltering in their wake.

For anyone who wishes to analyse the results a bit closer, we’ve got them here in PDF format for you to download and we’ll try to bring you the full set of tomorrow’s official scores as soon as possible after the finish, along with pictures from the podium and the presentation ceremonies. Like today, we’ll also give you a brief report on the day’s events and we’ll follow this all up with the usual galleries and overviews over the next week or two.

CLICK for Saturdays FULL downloadable results PDF file

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View from the central bridge looking up towards sections D and E.

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French star Diego da Silova prepares his kit prior to Saturdays start, while his manager Henri Durossier sees the funny side of something!

A truly awesome performance by every member of the team, including the bank runners who kept England’s anglers informed and focussed on the job at hand. Each angler in the team used very simple tactics, on two lines, during the day. Even lost fish, some of which were foul-hooked, couldn’t weaken the determination that they all showed and the cool-headed temperament that was needed to be the major force which all of the rest of the world consider England to be.

In A section, England’s Sean Ashby found himself on the tree-less and concreted peg 32, pegged between Ukraine’s Oleksii Pashukevych and Matchangler.com member Andreas Sandberg from Sweden. Sean used the tactics discovered in practice to finish with 5.740 kilos and 8 points. One major talking point from A section will be raised in the Irish camp by Willy Wheeler and how he needs his team mates to do something miraculous tomorrow from their finishing position of 25th today, just behind the French.

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Large crowds gathered before the 'off' around their Italian hero Gianluigi Sorti and Will Raison. They must have known a great battle was looming!

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Will Raison nets another of the canals many small carassio residents.

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The crowds swelled as the weigh-in proceeded along B section, especially when it reached Will Raison.

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Will Raison with a poss? of photographers eager to 'snap' his section winning 13,270kg.

Following Sean, and fishing in B section, was Will Raison who, despite losing his first large fish whilst Gianluigi Sorti from Italy landed his, didn’t panic to bring home just a 'perfect' point from their peg-to-peg battle on 18 and 19. Will’s 13.270 kilos, which was seen being weighed in by a crowd of well over a hundred people, gave him an almost two kilo cushion over the Italian 'Ace', who finished in fifth place, behind Germany's Rene Bredereck, Switzerland’s Jean-Jacques Iseli (who both took 12.300 kilos to the scales) and Hungary's Balazs Csoregi.
 
England's third man was Alan Scotthorne on the right hand side of the Ponte Manola bridge who like Sean, came back with 8 points and a weight of 4.170 kilos. Alan was close to where the England team had precticed the previous day. He also found himself pegged close to Italy’s Stefano Defendi, but had Andrew Gray from the Channel Islands between him to stop them from coming to actual blows... what a job for Andrew, who unfortunately ended in 36th place with a weight of 800 grams. Surely he must of had a sore neck from what seemed to be a five set game of tennis!

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Belgian Hans Slegers kept the form of the previous days practice and secured top place in D section with 7,560, just over a 100 grams more than England's Des Shipp.
To the left of the central bridge, on peg D9, and in the full glare of the northern Italian sun, was Des Shipp, who was narrowly beaten by Belgian Hans Slegers for the section by a mere 110 grams. Des used the close-in line to snare a couple of larger fish whilst most of the other anglers in the section relied on just the one line. The wind in this section also found fault with two anglers poles by breaking the top sections. Claude Jacoby of Luxembourg, had his splintered top section cut through its elastic during a fight with a larger fish. Another angler ended up fishing with a full top five kit when his number six section broke too.

Steve Gardener, on E section’s peg 3 found himself playing a very risky game of catch-up towards the end of the day, trying and haul back Italy’s Jacopo Falsini. His ever reliable attitude eventually brought him back to just a margin of 800 grams by the end, with a final tally of 7.510kg to Falsini’s 8.310kg. Man of the moment, down on peg 35, just two off end peg itself, was South Africa’s Jaco Goodwin. He finished up with a total of 9.580kg and a single point. What price could you get on a World Champion coming from the only country in this year’s event that is from south of the equator?

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Hungarian Balazs Csoregi on B17, started very slowly but turned in a last dash performance and snatched 4th in section from Gianluigi Sorti in the last half hour.

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German Rene Bredereck on B21, kept a consistent catch rate for a total of 12.300kg, which tied him with Switzerland's Jean-Jacques Iseli for 2nd in section.

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Des Shipp confirmed his practice potential with a superb 2nd place in D section.

Tomorrow sees the anglers do it all again, to decide the team and individual champions, but could there be an unexpected new face on the podium, and could we see England take the crown from Italy in the same style they did in Paris in 2001?

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Eric Lubin of France can't bear to look at the scales. He was, however, France's best performer on a day they may choose to forget!