European Giants win Bernd Best Tournament for the first time.
See all detailed results (PDF file)
Finally you can watch them again. The recordings from Bernd Best Tournaments' finals 2010 and 2009 are now available online.
Next tournament will take place April 15th - 17th 2011.
Lars Welding did some photos during Bernd Best Tournament 2010 showing wheelchair rugby players from a different point of view.
See photos from the court and the surroundings in our photo database.
By Mike Eichholtz, Nigel Goddard and Sandra Meinert
With an incredibly exciting Champions League Final the 12th Bernd Best tournament came to a worthy conclusion. The two teams involved – the European Giants and The Rebels (final score 48:47) – showed the numerous spectators what Wheelchair Rugby is all about: the will to win and the spirit to fight until the end. Indeed, the whole week-end provided exciting encounters in all four divisions.
In addition to being an important sporting event, the Bernd Best tournament also constitutes an opportunity for new referees to gain match experience alongside experienced international colleagues. Even when emotions occasionally soared in the heat of the matches, the relationship between players, teams, referees and table refs remained decidedly fair. The solidarity among all rugby fans throughout the whole weekend was palpable.
During the closing ceremony, the organizers Norbert Leisten and Wilfried Klein described the two characteristics of the Bernd Best tournament: Firstly, many rugby players getting together to compete and have fun; Secondly, contributing to a general acceptance and appreciation of disabled people in public and politics.
The Basic League offers new teams the opportunity to compete. This league usually consists mainly of German teams trying to get competition experience.
This year the Basic League was dominated by the Warriors Felber A from Austria and the Hamburger SV, with the Austrians having the edge in the final, winning with a score of 42:35.Both teams showed more than Basic League level and looked very well coordinated.
In the match for fifth place, the third team of the Cologne Alligators was defeated by the Speedos Koblenz 2, who simply appeared fitter after the long (or rather: short) party night. The experienced Koblenz team won deservedly with 6 points difference. The unilateral “down-classification” of a Cologne player raised some eyebrows here.
The Advanced League was the clear league of choice for most teams in 2010 and was consequently the biggest league featuring 16 teams. This league constitutes the interface between rugby on a recreational and on a competitive level with teams being made up of experienced older players as well as of new ambitious players. In this league the two French teams overpowered their competitors and finally faced off in the finale where the Grinders Patrol beat Les Mambas 47:34. The Grinders’ 3.5 point player so totally dominated the competition that the ever-present classification issue got a lot of new discussion material.
Some teams with a preference for playing in the Advanced League had to be upgraded to the Professional League. Even though some were not very happy about this, the league turned out to be evenly balanced and offered competitive and exciting encounters. The Gaelic Warriors 1 lost the final to the Polish team “The Reds 2” with 25:36, thus improving one place compared to last year. After many years, the hosting team Cologne Alligators 1 finally managed to field a team in the Professional League again and were quite satisfied with their finish in 6th place. The Bochum Roadrunners had certainly expected more than their second to last place in front of the Prague Robots.
The short-notice withdrawal of the junior team Next Generation from the Champions League had implications for all leagues. Players of this team switching to other teams distorted the comparative standard in the other leagues, as could be seen with the Hamburg team in the Basic League.
The final of the Champions League between the European Giants and the Karlsruhe Rebels lived up to its usual high standards. Last year’s champions from Karlsruhe were unable to defend their title against an impressive Giants side determined to take home the trophy. Being made up of players from Belgium, Britain, Switzerland, Sweden and Germany, and therefore unable to practice much together, the team, marshalled by player-coach Jason Roberts, played to their individual strengths to hand the extremely compact Rebels defense their first defeat in over a year.
Right from the start both teams gave the crowd a demonstration of what wheelchair rugby is all about: No ball and no point was ever given up easily, motivation and fighting spirit reigned supreme until the very end. The final offered a prime example of a focused game in which each of the few mistakes was immediately punished by the opponent. After being behind 27:23 at half-time, the Rebels relentlessly chipped away at the Giant’s lead until they managed to equalise and even edge ahead near the middle of the last quarter. But in the end it was the Giants who turned the game in their favour just before the final whistle to win 48:47. This memorable match was refereed by the internationally experienced Gilles Briere from Canada and Chris van de Riet from Switzerland.