Simon Bird, Sofiane Lachani & Nick Baxter (Kent) took up the invitation to represent Great Britain at this very prestigious competition

The competition was for 48 invited teams which included France (including 6 world or former world champions), Switzerland, Monaco, Netherlands, Germany, Madagascar, Andorra, Reunion Islands along with Spain, all the Spanish regional champions and teams from Ibiza.

The competition was split into 8 groups of 6 teams with the top 2 teams qualifying for the main competition.

The British team started off at 9am well beating the champions of Lanzerote 13-9. But the second game was a very different affair as they came up against France C. This team included one the most famous players in France, Christian Fazzino (5 x world champion). The British team started well taking the first 3 ends to lead 3-0 by which time a small crowd had gathered including the current world champion. They took 4 the next end to lead 7-0 before the French replied 7-2. The next end Lachani carreaued twice, along with some more excellent pointing by the other two, 11-2. The French then got back into the game to make it 11-7 before the British team finished them off with some more fine play. They then went on to play the champions of Alicante and went 11-8 up before the competition was halted for 3 hours for the presentation of teams and lunch. In the afternoon they continued their good form to finish off Alicante 13-8 and two teams from Ibiza 13-5 and 13-2. This meant they had won the group which nobody had thought possible at the start of the day.

In the last 16 they were drawn against Seville with a 10pm start under the floodlights.
Unfortunately they were unable to recreate the form from earlier in the day and went out of the competition 13-3.

Seville went on to the final where they beat France B 15-4 with a sensational finish with the pointer from Seville shooting twice in the last end, hitting twice (1 spot carreau) both at 14 meters.

Report from Simon Bird.