17 Jun 2008 at 08:43 | Published by: JJM | Views: 6902 | News search

The reigning Finnish eternite champions of 2007, Kosti Salonen and Mirva Juhola, renewed their titles at the eternite course of Tampere.

Kosti continued the good game that he showed at Nations Cup, with an average score 22.22 after 9 rounds. His win margin was one point only, however, as Tom Ahlberg gave another world-class performance 22.33 at this difficult eternite course. Tommi Lantta took bronze with average 23.56, one point ahead of Jussi Heino in fourth place.

Women’s winner Mirva Juhola played a very promising score 25.22, which includes one black moment in the 32-round of Sunday morning. Mia Paavola took silver with average 27.00, and Nina Mustonen bronze with average 29.00.

» video: last three lanes of the competition
music by Simon Goffin, Belgium

2nd Mia Paavola, 1st Mirva Juhola, 3rd Nina Mustonen (photo by Arto Borg)

Gold in team competition went to the only favourite, Taivallahden RGS, with a surprisingly narrow win margin 18 points. Minigolf-Aces took silver, and Manse RG received the third and last place of team competition.

Many Finnish teams have problems getting enough players for a team competition of 6 players. In felt championships the size of team has been reduced to 4 + 2 players. Eternite and beton are still played with teams of 6 players, but the number of participating teams is often quite unsatisfactory.

Nearly all Finnish national team candidates scored dramatically better than at Nations Cup one month ago. Tom Ahlberg improved his Nations Cup score by 4.67 points per round, Jussi Heino 3.58 points per round, Ari Ahrenberg 3.00 points per round, Jyri Rantanen 2.42 points per round, Tommi Lantta 2.27 points per round, and Axel Ekman 0.75 points per round.

The players have had some extra practice on the course, but some commentators are not quite sure whether this dramatic improvement tells about increased technical skill and knowledge, or easier psychological circumstances in the competition. Stepping to international spotlights is a big psychological challenge for some minigolf players, especially the newcomers.

National team candidate Axel Ekman played the Net (lane number 13) from the left wall in his last competition round. Many believe that he was simply bored with his life, universe and everything. But Axel himself claims that it was not a complete joke. He says that the margin for error feels “incredibly large” both in force and in direction of the shot.

» video: Ekman playing the Net in round 8 of the competition
» results of the competition
» photo gallery of the competition
» Koulukatu eternite course in Tampere, Finland

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