01 Jul 2010 at 10:15 | Published by:  | Views: 6990 | News search

During last weekend the most important tournament of the italian minigolf season has been played on the concrete course in Predazzo (that will host European Elite Championships in August).

The tournament was played with 2 beautiful sunshine days and summer temperatures.

The tournament reserved some surprising results both in team and individual events. The concrete course is quite a lot eventful and often you need to have the "right day" to get a top result.

As regards teams, the only missing surprise was in the ladies event, with GSP Cusano that dominates like in the 3 previous team tournament of the year. The team has actually 3 of the best Italian female players so there's not any space for surprises. Cusano won with 474 strokes, 49 strokes better than GSP Lozza who got a second place. Close match for second place, with GSP Vergiate 3rd, just 3 strokes behind Lozza, and 4th place for the defending champions of MC Monza.

Big surprises in men team events.
The best 3 teams of the year could only reach 3rd (GSP Vergiate), 4th (GSP Cusano) and 5th place (MGC Novi Ligure).
This had been enough for GSP Vergiate to win the league and qualify for EC 2011 that will be played on home course in Vergiate, but they risked a lot to miss this chance, because before last round GSP Cusano was in the lead and GSP Vergiate only 4th. With that situation, the victory of the league would have gone to GSP Cusano, that lost all (title and league) in the last decisive round.
Surprising victory of the Italian title with MC Monza, team that could not get better than 4th place in the previous team events of the year. Second place, just 2 strokes behind, for MT Amatese, another team that didn't have big results in the previous competitions of the year.

Predazzo is a strange course and this is confirmed once more by the individual events, that completely overturned the results and values of the last two years.

Among ladies, Anna Bandera (GSP Cusano), the defending champion and absolutely dominator of the last 3 seasons in Italy, could only reach a 4th place.
The title went to Antonella Flamini (MC Aponense), senior player that finally managed to get her first overall Italian title.
Second place for Sara Marchiani (GSP Cusano) and bronze to Paola Tecchio (GSP Vergiate).

Among men, it has to be noticed that both ruler of the last seasons were far away for the top places. Rudi Giroldini (GSP Vergiate), title defender could only reach a final 18th place; Paolo Porta (MGC Novi Ligure), silver medal in 2009 and winner of 5 titles in the last 9 years, could only get a 22nd finale place.
From the top 5 players of the previous championships, which were played in Monza (miniaturegolf course), the best was Lorenzo Ciompi (ASMC Follonica) that reached a good but not special 12th place.
The title went anyway to a very good player, Francesco Leuci (MT Amatese), which ended the 6 rounds with 180 strokes (30.00 avg) , 1 better better than the youngster Lorenzo Levis (GSP Vergiate) and 3 better than Stefano Piccini (MT Amatese), which was probably the top favourite being the best player in Predazzo course in the last years.

Francesco (better known as "Cecio"), like Antonella, is a senior player that could finally reach his first overall Italian title after many years.

Next big event in Italy will be Italian Youth and Senior Championships, that will be played in Follonica (concrete course) next 17th-18th July.

SHARE Share Tweet