European Championships 2001, Oslo, Norway 2/4 June

Review by Richard Sampson
For photos click on www.discgolfphotos.com

Jesper Takes European Crown, But Climo Is Still The Man
The European Championships was the biggest European competition ever with over 170 players competing from 18 countries. Most of the top European players were present including the Kallstrom brothers and Jesper Lundmark from Sweden, as was the World's greatest player, Ken Climo from the United States. This was Climo's first competition in Europe and there was a real buzz amongst the players seeing the ten times and current World Champion in action. Joining Climo on his European travels was David Greenwell of the United States. Greenwell has been at the top of the game for the last 18 years and was recently voted the second best player of all time by the PDGA.

The two courses were at different locations, Stovner and Furuset, and had 22 baskets each, par 66 and 67 respectively. The courses were very different to each other. The Stovner course has 18 permanent holes with 4 new ones added for the tournament. It is set in a public park, grassed with undulating terrain.. The Furuset course is new and still being developed. The land appears to be an old dumping ground and is set close to a power station. The terrain is heavily wooded, up and down, broken and wild. The courses offered a fair mix of interest and challenge.

A random doubles competition was played on Friday evening, winner takes all. In June in Oslo it doesn't get dark til after 11.30pm, so time wasn't as issue. The tournament started proper on saturday morning.

In the Open Division, after the first round, the Finish player Jussi Meresmaa made his intentions very clear, taking a one shot lead over the World Champion Ken Climo. In the second round Climo made his move producing arguably the most oustanding round of the tournament, throwing 15 under par at Furuset, including one four. This gave Climo a clear lead.

Everything was very tight amongst the chasers. The 3rd round saw a few players dropping back, amongst them, reigning European Champion Christian Sandstrom and Finland's Sami Loukko. In the 4th round Meeresmaa dropped a little off the pace and Sweden's Jesper Lundmark continued to improve.

The 4th round finished on Sunday and the top 36 of the Open Division made the cut for the semis to be played the following day. Climo led the field by 9 shots at this point.

The semis saw a few movers and shakers, David Greenwell and Lundmark were the pick of the rounds. Norways's Carlos Rio and Sweden's Thomas Wahlström dropped out of the picture. Lundmark finished clear in second and Anders Kallstrom was comfortable in 3rd place. Greenwell did enough to tie with Meeresmaa for 5th and force a playoff to see who made the final, unfortunately for Greenwell, the Fin took him. Markus Kallstrom finished the semis in 4th place.

The nine hole final of the Open Division took place after all the other division finals were completed. There was a good crowd of spectators for all the finals.

The Junior Divison (under 19) was won by Sweden's Dennis Vuorisalo. His score after 4 rounds would have placed him in the top 10 of the Open Division.

The Womens Division had 14 players and the race for the title was a two horse race between Sweden's Birgitta Lagerholm and Nilofar Mossavar Rahmani. Despite a fightback from Nilofar in the final Birgitta won by 5 shots. There was a great performance from England's Sue Underwood to make 5th place in the final. The highlight of the final was a AAA (almost an ace) by Anna Åkesson. The hole was 25 degrees downhill and about 110m. Her disc hit dead centre of the chains and bounced straight out, bummer.

The Masters Division was a rollercoaster with three players tasting the lead. England's Charlie Mead set the early pace, but was hauled back by USA's HB Clark and Finland's Ilkka Tamminen. It was Tamminem who turned the screw over the last two periods of play to win by 9 strokes.

The Grandmasters Division was won by Mike Ocon from the Netherlands. He took a nine shot lead into the final and scraped through winning by 3 strokes from Germany's Viro Schneider.

The Open Division final brought no suprises. Climo had a nine shot lead over Lundmark, who in turn was comfortably ahead of Anders Kallstrom. The gallery had swelled to quite a size and were anxious for some scintillating action. Climo started brightly canning a beautiful uphill putt from 25metres on the first which was well apprecited by the gallery. Lundmark however had the best of the final, shooting 7 birds over the nine to claim second place and the title European Open Champion. Markus Kallstrum held off Jussi Meresmaa for 4th place and Anders Kallstrom took 3rd.

All in all a great Championship. Congratulations to all the players and those involved in staging the event.

The full results can be found by clicking here

There are 118 photos from the European Championships at discgolfphotos.com