The Turk Hakan Gencer (Labrax) and the French Amandine Gomez (Denty) are respectively the new men and women Euro-African Champions. The first was the favorite to win since the beginning, both because competing at home, and because considered the strongest Turkish athlete. The second, has made something extraordinary! Not yet 22 years old, and at her first year competing, Amandine has won the French National Championship this year and now also the Euro-African Championship. Gomez is definitely a real talent!
Men’s individual results
In two competition fields where big depths were not the key to success, and with wrasses (maximum 5) and brown meagres (maximum 3) being the base to be competitive, many strong champions have somehow been struggling a big. In fact, after the first 8 fish mentioned above, the search for other species was pretty hard. Congers were the best option, and such fish are the speciality of the Croatians, then seabreams, scorpionfish, some mullets and salemas, could be found, but not many.
Behind the amazing Hakan, winning both days of competition and finally having an advantage of almost 22% on the second, the teammate Fahrihan Uysal. Third is an amazing Antonio Buratovic (Croatia), with 151.56%. The standings continue with very small percentage differences due to the lack of huge quantities of fish and of big dimensions.
Great names like Luigi Puretti, Oscar Cervantes, Giacomo De Mola, the reigning World Champion Santi Lopez Cid, managed to be among the first 20 of 56 participants, but nothing more. So at the base of the podium we find another Croatian, Slaven Cubric (144.41%), the a very strong Samuel Tomas Ramon, the best of the Spanish, with 139.59%. Sixth is the Algerian Abdenour Cherdoud (138.79%), seventh the first of the French, Guillaume Eugene (137.36%). Oscar Cervantes is finally eighth (136.99%), the athlete from Montenegro Dusan Vukcevic is nineth (129.08%) and Sandi Perusko (Croatia) is tenth (124.88%). The best of the Italians is Rocco Cuccaro, eleventh, in front of the Vice World Champion Luigi Puretti and the former World Champion Giacomo De Mola.
Women’s individual results
The amazing result of Amandine Gomez is even more impressive when you think she beat not only the local athletes, but also names such as the World Champion Malen Sart, finally seventh, and the now former Euro-African Champion, Tiziana Martinelli. The latter, eighth, honestly has done a great job considering she should not have been competing as Technical Director of the Italian women team. Tiziana instead had finally to be in the water substituting one of her athletes not being able to be present with very last notice. Tiziana has still a lot of work to do in bringing the Italian women team to an acceptable level.
Amandine has managed to conquer the title winning day 2, and being in front of an excellent Ivana Bralic (Croatia) by 17.59%. Third in the individual standings is Lidija Vukic, the Norwegian athlete always present at the top level of the rankings in the international competitions.
At the base of the podium we find the best of the Turkish women, Berivan Simsek, followed by her teammate, Elcin Guner, winner of the first day, but having quite a debacle in day 2, with unfortunately only 22.22%. Rocio Benitez is the first of the Spanish, follower by Malen Sart, Tiziana Martinelli and Sandra Osorio. Tenth is the second French athlete, Marina Helluin.
Türkiye and Spain win the teams
Türkiye wins the Teams’ competition in the men’s category, while Spain has a magnificent result winning the women’s one. Türkiye is also second in the women’s teams standings, while Spain is third in the men’s. A word must be spent for Croatia, being able to reach an amazing second position in the men’s team standings and a fantastic third in the women’s.
Italy is fourth in the men’s standings, in front of France and Algeria. In the women’s teams standing, at the base of the podium is France.
