Juniors World Championships 2008 are played on eternite and felt courses in Budapest, Hungary. Germany won team gold in male juniors, with a clear margin of 26 points ahead of Sweden in second place. Czech Republic got bronze, 36 points behind Sweden and 37 points ahead of Austria in fourth place.

In female juniors Czech Republic won team gold for the second year in a row — again after a tied score and sudden death play-off, as last year. Germany got silver, after losing the sudden death. Bronze medals went to Sweden, 22 points behind the winners, and 7 points ahead of Switzerland in fourth place.

The best players of 8 preliminary rounds were Sascha Spreier of Germany and Filiph Svensson of Sweden. Both of them played average 29.75 on felt, and 23.25 on eternite. Gerrit Britz of Germany was third best in preliminary rounds, with average 32.25 on felt, and a sovereign game 21.00 on the difficult eternite course.

In female juniors the three best players of 8 preliminary rounds were Jana Nakládalová of Czech Republic (felt 31.25, eternite 26.50), Frida Elmdahl of Sweden (felt 35.00, eternite 23.75), and Anna Nitschke of Germany (felt 36.00, eternite 23.25).

Rocky Bullin of Great Britain (known to friends as “Harry Putter”) was last but not least in the competition of male juniors: he scored a new British record 38 on felt. The previous British record was 40 points on one round of felt minigolf.

Traditionally the strongest felt nation in the world, Sweden was unable to take the first place in any statistics of preliminary rounds. The best team on felt was Germany in boys, and Czech Republic in girls. The best felt player was Aki Sillman of Finland in boys, and Jana Nakládalová of Czech Republic in girls.

Best players on felt: 1.  29.50   SILLMAN Aki 2.  29.75   SPREIER Sascha 3.  29.75   SVENSSON Filiph

1.  31.25   NAKLÁDALOVÁ Jana 2.  33.00   LÖF Emma 3.  34.25   DRBOHLAVOVÁ Veronika 4.  34.25   HANDLOVÁ Simona

Best teams on felt: 1.  31.92   Germany 2.  32.67   Sweden 3.  34.71   Czech Republic

1.  33.83   Czech Republic 2.  34.58   Sweden 3.  35.25   Switzerland

Best players on eternite: 1.  21.00   BRITZ Gerrit 2.  23.00   ŘÍHA Michal 3.  23.00   MLČOCH Ondřej 4.  23.00   VIHERVAARA Oskari

1.  23.25   NITSCHKE Anna 2.  23.75   ELMDAHL Frida 3.  24.00   UHL Jasmin

Best teams on eternite: 1.  24.13   Czech Republic 2.  24.33   Germany 3.  24.67   Sweden

1.  24.17   Germany 2.  26.17   Czech Republic 3.  26.58   Austria

32 best male juniors and 16 best female juniors of the 8 preliminary rounds qualify to the cup finals, which are played on Saturday 9 August. Each cup round consists of 9 lanes of eternite and 9 lanes of felt. The winner of a match continues to the next round, and the loser falls out of the competition.

results of 8 preliminary rounds and team competition

photo gallery, day 1

photo gallery, day 2

photo gallery, day 3

website of the tournament

archive photo by