18th Franco Baschirotto Memorial Challenge Trophy 2007

[the deacon]

The 18th Franco Baschirotto Memorial Challenge Trophy will be held at San Giorgio di Nogaro, Italy, on the weekend of 7 and 8 July 2007.
The tournament is open to the partecipation of a maximum of 16 teams in the Men's category only (we are working on organising a Women's Category tournament for 2008) for national teams, U21, U18 and club teams from Div. 1 and Div. 2.
Further details can be found on the Calender page of this forum.
The teams registered as of today are:

Irish Senior National Team
Polish Senior National Team
Polish U18 National Team
Canoa Kayak Academy, Italy
Canoa San Giorgio, Italy
Gruppo Canoe Polesine, Italy
UCK Bari, Italy
Nottingham University, U.K.
Dragon, U.K.
Vidas, Hungary
Canoa Kayak Las Rozas, Spain

[the deacon]

Here are the results of the Tournament:

Team Italy U21
Canottieri Comunali Firenze, Italy
Canoa Kayak Academy, Bari, Italy
Nottingham University, Nottingham U.K
Canoa San Giorgio, San Giorgio di Nogaro, Italy
L.N.I. Ancona, Italy
Vidra Budapest, Hungary
Gruppo Canoe Polesine, Rovigo Italy
Canoa Kayak Las Rozas, Madrid Spain
Representative Friuli-Venezia-Giulia Italy Unfortunately, the two Polish National Teams, the SENIOR MEN's team and the JUNIOR U18 team which were confirmed and registered for the event failed to arrive at the tournament, without even a late e-mail or telephone call to me to say that they were not coming at all.

This caused, as you could imagine, problems for us organisers, and consequently lowered the overall quality of the game especially for the other teams present.

It seems that even though we had included the following 'courtesy message' into our invitation' it now apparently was not considered at all at the time of their acceptance when they sent me an email:

'Please carefully consider your commitment before accepting this invitation, as defaulting later on will not only disrupt the programming of the matches but most of all it will not give us sufficient time to substitute your team adequately with another.'



I would like to know from other forum members what experiences they have had in situations like this and what actions they have taken. And what advice they could give for the future.
In any case, I shall write a formal complaint to the Polish Federation after all, I can understand (but not accept) when a club team defaults, but I think that it is suprising when National Teams default without so much to write or phone to say 'Sorry, but we're not coming'!

Thanks!

[the deacon]

The default by the Poles did not dampen our tournament which went ahead very well nothwithstanding. I think that there was great competition between the teams and very few games could have been called 'push-overs'.

While some of the strong Italian teams (see Academy and Ancona) lost to the Italian U21 team: 5-0 and 7-0, Nottingham Uni held up well with a respectable 4-0 loss. They classfied with a respectable 4th up from last year's 11th position.

The Italian U21 National Team won the event, playing with some difficulty against the Series A team Canottieri Comunali Firenze (Runners-up in 2005). The regular time score finished 2-2, as did the Golden Goal Extra time.
After the Penalty Shoot-Out the final score was 5-3 for the Azzurri.

Bravo for CC Firenze who put on a superb show and played a very tactical game. It was, however a nail-biter game, as the final results could have swung any way. At the penalty shoot-out, both teams had equal opportunity to win as each team was conditioned by excellent goal keeping, but in the end it was victory for the national team.

Also kudos for CK Academy who were third.
The captain of this great team of youngsters from Bari in south Italy, is an outstanding roman athlete, Stefano Bucci, who won the tournament in 2004 when he played then for A.S. Mariner, Rome.

In next year's competition, we are introducing a Women's event paired with the Men's comp, for a maximum of 8 teams, so all you ladies out there, keep in mind that this is going to be a new event especially created for you'all!

[the deacon]

Here's the photo of the winners......but it seems that although the National Team got the Trophy, by the looks of it second classified Firenze had their own Trophy to raise to the skies !!!!