The big guns all fired in the canoe polo competition at the World Games in Birmingham last month, but watching from home was the one team who could have upset the natural order of the men’s competition.

The Danish men’s team caused somewhat of a surprise when they triumphed over world and World Games champions Germany 4-3 in the final of the ECA Cup in Italy. In that match Andreas Kaad Iversen scored twice to help his team to the biggest result in Danish canoe polo history.

“It would be a bit arrogant for me to say we were expecting that result,” Iversen said this week.

“We were really surprised, but we are a new team and I think we have a really good team, but I also think everything in that tournament clicked, and we also know it wasn’t the world championships.

“I think everyone was perhaps a little surprised that we managed to pull it off and go through the tournament undefeated, but it is what it is. It was a good start to maybe making some result here, but we’re not getting carried away.”

But unfortunately there was no opportunity for the giant-killing Danes to capitalise on their form at the World Games. Such was the turnaround in their form that they hadn’t qualified for Birmingham, so they spent their time at a training camp, watching the World Games stream.

“We analysed the games and the players to look at the sort of things we could do to stir up the pot once again,” Iversen said.

The Danes arrived in St-Omer on Sunday morning after a 14-hour drive hoping to pick up from where they left off at the ECA Cup in Italy. They are the great unknowns of this tournament.

Iversen said the key to the team’s success is that the hub of the team have been together for more than a decade.

“Five of us were playing in the U21’s from 2011 to 2015, where we managed to get some results,” he said.

“The core of that team is high quality, and then we have four younger guys who are doing really well and putting in the effort. They fit the old U21 team really well, therefore we have nine players that have come together to form this very sound team.”

Iversen stresses the team is not getting ahead of itself after the ECA result. There is a big jump in quality from that tournament to a world championships.

But winning form is good form.

“We really want to have a good start to the tournament, and we want to get out of the groups,” Iversen said.

“We’re looking for a semi-final, and really hope we can pull that off, but we know it’s going to be a really tough ride. In the ECA we didn’t pony any teams at all, we were winning 50-50 games all the time, and maybe in this tournament we’ll be losing the 50-50 games. You never know.

“We just hope for the semi-finals, and then anything from there can happen.”

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