Great Britain began its quest for a third consecutive men’s U21 canoe polo world title in style on Tuesday, although they had to survive a tense period with just three athletes on the pitch during their second match in St-Omer.
The British team had two players sin-binned for several minutes in their match against Chinese Taipei, but fought hard to secure a 4-2 victory. Earlier in the day they beat Argentina 10-0.
Captain Caleb Bowden said all his team are aware of Great Britain’s record in this event, but they are trying not to focus on it.
We’re not putting any pressure on ourselves, just taking it one game at a time,” captain Caleb Bowden said.
Every game is a final for us. We’ve been together for about two years now and been out here for the past two to three weeks training.
We’re a completely new team from 2018, so nice and fresh.”
Germany is also undefeated at the end of day one, notching up a 3-2 result against Denmark, and then strolling past Ireland 11-0. The Germans have not won the men’s U21 title since 2010.
New Zealand played just the one game on Tuesday, but could not have been more impressive in posting a 7-0 win against South Africa. The only other undefeated team in the men’s draw is Italy, who had a 8-3 win against South Africa, and a 3-2 victory over Spain.
Our games were harder than we expected, but it is the first matches and the team is new, so we are settling down,” captain Francesco Barbagello said.
The first match was good, now we’ll move on to the others and try and end the first phase the best way. Saturday you will know how good we are.”
Switzerland and France played out an exciting 4-4 draw in the opening matches of the day, giving Swiss captain Livio Vogeli reason to believe his team can have a strong world championships.
It’s really amazing, I really can’t put it into words,” Vogeli said.
We’re very happy with a draw. It was a great job for us, we played with the heart and that’s what we can show you. All my teammates are like brothers, so it’s amazing to be here. We thought we lose to them, so this is crazy.
I think this will be great for the rest of the tournament, I think we can beat all of them now.”
Switzerland beat Poland 4-3 in its only other game on Tuesday.
The Belgian men’s U21 team had a busy opening day, finishing with two wins and a draw. Belgium drew their opening match 5-5 with Chinese Taipei, and then impressed with a 5-2 win over Netherlands and a comprehensive 8-0 victory over Argentina.
We were a bit disappointed after our first game, but it was a good game,” captain Mats Mampaey said.
We train a lot together, and we try and make quick attacks. I think it is paying off. We are hoping to score a top ten, which would be our best result in 20 years for Belgium. I think we’ve got the team to do it.”
Portugal also made a good start, beating Ireland 5-1 and Japan 3-0 before losing a tight tussle 5-6 to Denmark. Portuguese captain Jose Ribeiro said beating Ireland in the opening match gave his team strong confidence.
Last year we lost to Ireland, and it was one of our objectives to win this game,” he said.
It gives us a good chance to finish higher in the group. It’s one step, but if we can finish like this. We are aiming for top six. Last year we finished the Europeans in 12th place, so we are hoping to get better results.”
Host nation France had just the one game on Tuesday, the 4-4 draw with Switzerland, while Denmark also looked strong with two wins and a close 2-3 loss to Germany. The Netherlands and Poland finished with a win and a draw, and Chinese Taipei a draw and a loss.
South Africa, Ireland, Japan, Spain, Czech Republic and Argentina are all chasing their first wins for the championships.
Men’s U21 competition continues on Wednesday.
