Well the 1st European Championships are behind us and we are left with great memories! The local organization did an exceptional job in pulling this off. It looked and felt big. For very little money everyone got a great player package with a beach chair (with beer holder), lots of flags around, stands for spectators, a great beach, VIP’s, parties, etc… It was the most impressive BULA tournament ever!
Soon the ECBU website (www.ecbu2008.org) will have a guestbook where people can leave links to pictures, comments, etc… Until then, here are some of my pictures on Facebook, as well as the final results:
| Classification | |||
| Pos. | Open | Mixed | Masters |
| 1 | Switzerland | Germany | Germany |
| 2 | France | Spain | France |
| 3 | Belgium | Czech Rep. | |
| 4 | Spain | Portugal | |
| 5 | Netherland | International | |
| 6 | Austria | Belgium | |
| 7 | Czech Rep. | Denmark | |
| 8 | Ireland | ||
For the Spirit of the Game award, the new WFDF/BULA SOTG scoring system was used. This system gives 1 point for a normal game and 2 points for an exceptional game. The teams are rated on 8 criteria so a score of 8 is normal and a score of 16 is truly exceptional. After all the games were played, the average score per team was calculated and this was the result:
| Spirit of the Game | |||
| Pos. | Open | Mixed | Masters |
| 1 | Ireland (11.5) | Portugal (11.0) | Germany (11.3) |
| 2 | Switzerland (11.4) | Germany (10.3) | France (10.0) |
| 3 | Belgium (11.4) | Belgium (9.9) | |
| 4 | Czech Rep. (10.8) | Denmark (9.8) | |
| 5 | Austria (10.6) | Czech Rep. (9.7) | |
| 6 | Netherlands (9.2) | International (9.6) | |
| 7 | Spain (9.2) | Spain (9.1) | |
| 8 | France (8.7) | ||
I want to thank all the players, organizers, the volunteers, sponsors, and the city of Le Pouliguen for making this happen. The next National Championships will be the World Championships in 2011. Next year we will send out requests for bids.