Monday, September 20, 2010

Results of World Spearfishing Champs in Croatia

Team:

Craig Heslop (Captain)
Ryan Burmester
Angelo Spada
Brent Bortslap
Andrew Henwood (Manager)

17 September - Positions after Day 1

Day 1 was really tough, the current was strong and a lot of the fish seen during scouting had moved.
We decided to focus on congers as they are fairly resident and more common than the other fish.

Interestingly very few fish came out yesterday, probably about 20 weighers out of 60 divers.  Most of which were wrasse and a few blacktail. Ryan did really well and got 3 congers out.  These fish are very strong and if you don't get them out of the cave immediately then you are in trouble. 

The Croatian team did well and all got good catches.  Daniel Gospic, 10 congers and 2 fish, biggest conger was 15 kgs, which is a monster.  Pedro Carbonell came in second with Tony from Croatia third. 

Today we are diving off zone 2 which is off the island of Unje which should hopefully hold more fish.  Brent is diving in place of Angelo today. 

The welcome party at the harbour was awesome with press and thousands of spectators.  The weigh in was more impressive with live video feed and big screen, all results were updated live on the screen which added to the excitement. 

Very well organised so far and we will give today our best shot to try and improve our position.

Positions after day 1

1.      Croatia
2.      Spain
3.      Italy

South Africa are lying 8th and Ryan currently 11th!

Final Positions after Day 2

Individuals:
1.      Daniel Gospic – Croatia
2.      Antonio Buratović – Croatia
3.      Bruno De Silvestri – Italy
4.      Pedro Carbonell – Spain
5.      Dario Marinov – Croatia

18.   Ryan Burmester - South Africa
33.   Brent Bortslap - South Africa
40.   Craig Heslop - South Africa

Total of 60 Divers.

Teams:
1.      Croatia
2.      Italy
3.      Spain
4.      South Africa

This is a good effort by our boys. There were a total of 20 teams!

Comments from Ryan Burmester:

Came 18th out of 60 divers, Was 11th after Day 1 but my sinuses bombed today so could not get down to my fish in the deep. Big time bummer after all our hard work was hoping to be first South African to crack top ten.

Comments from Craig Heslop:

As a team we got more points than yesterday but got pipped by Slovenia, Algeria and Great Britain. We ended up 11th overall.

Brent did well today with 1 conger and 2 fish. Ryan and I got 1 each. Brent with his 3 fish today beat Joseba who is the current world champ. Just shows how tough conditions are out there.

Well done to our divers. I think despite some very obvious tough conditions against extremely good divers our boys did well.

Don't forget the guys our boys are diving against are paid for this and scout the areas for months on end beforehand. When Daniel Gospic was in South Africa for this year’s Nationals we could see his obvious talent, yet when he dived here some of our guys were competitive against him. Let’s bring worlds to South Africa and look for a South African World champion!

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