Congratulations to the GB team and performance staff on achieving the Bronze medal at the European Championships in Antwerp. This was a good performance from a new look side against some strong opposition. Despite a wobble against a good Finland team, in which Leevi dominated and GB went down 56-50 we came back to win against Belgium and take the number one spot in our group. In the crossover match Sweden were too strong and GB went down 47-53 but then bounced back with an emphatic win against Germany 56-43 to take the Bronze Medal. Sweden eventually went on to take the Gold in a thrilling final against Denmark which was decided by a one point difference 49-48 . GB can be pleased with their performance at this stage of the squad’s development. This is a new and exciting team with some great potential. Ayaz Bhutta was one of the stars of the tournament and is certainly going to be one to watch as he gains the experience of playing the best teams. Jim Roberts also grew with each game and with the added plus that he was re-classified a 3.0, down from a 3.5 following protest. In the Bronze game Head Coach Paul Shaw was able to give all of his lines the opportunity to have time on court and feel some of the pressure of playing in a medal winning game and they will have learnt a great deal from this experience. Although this result is a great first step and means that by medalling GB has met its UK Sport target for year one of the programme and qualified for next year’s World Championships in Copenhagan, no one is under any illusions about the work we still have to do if we are to compete with the best. That work continues now and over the next few weeks the Performance team will be finalising their review of this year as the basis for building the programme which will lead to the World’s in 2014. High on the agenda for the weeks ahead will be the talent development programme and the work being undertaken at the Peter Harrison Centre. It was pleasing to see in Antwerp how the competition in Europe is really strengthening and this will help all of the European nations close the gap on the Asiatic and North American teams. Congratulations to Christoph Werner of Poland who was elected as the new President of Europe. We look forward to working closely with him to help strengthen our zone. And thank you and congratulations to Belgium for hosting a great championship.
David Pond
