World Championship Juniors in Lons-le-Saunier
2-4 November, 2001

poster1.JPG (16929 bytes) Lons-le-Saunier is the capital city of the Jura department, about 250 miles southeast of Paris. That's where 30 youth teams from 29 countries met for their bi-annual coveted trophy. A beautiful part of France, hilly and green, blessed by unusually sunny weather for this time of year.
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Juraparc sports hall, where the event took place

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Opening Ceremony
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The USA team
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Pierre Lazare (DC), David Nguyen (L.A.), Artem Zuev (L.A.), P.J. Malette (Sonoma), and delegation leader Frank Pipal.

Scores of the preliminaries, some of which lasted till midnight...
USA-Switzerland: 2-13
USA-Luxembourg: 1-13
USA-Norway: 9-13
USA-Slovenia: 13-6
USA-Australia: 13-11
USA-Australia: 13-10

This carried them to the 8th Finals (a first in the US Federation's history!) where they were up against France, who were holding the title.
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They fought very hard, and both teams scored evenly in the beginning. Then France got a breakthrough with 6 points in a single round.
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Our guys stayed cool, and even caught up some points, but the gap was just too wide from then on.

Final score: 13 to 6 for France 1
A remarkable performance for the USA team, and more than reason enough for family and friends who came all the way to support them to celebrate!
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Who won the title ??
Eight teams made it to the quarter finals: France 1 and 2 (the title holder, and the organizing country are always entitled to two teams) Spain, Algeria, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and Belgium.

Sweden defeated the Netherlands 13-6, and Belgium beat Spain also 13-6 in the semi finals.

Then Belgium beat Sweden in the finals 15-14, and Spain took 3rd place against the Netherlands with 13-5.
2. Sweden 1. Belgium 3. Spain
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It was a nice sight: youngsters from all over the world playing their favorite sport and making new friends.

We ran into the Belgian team in a restaurant (looks familiar ?) after their victory against Spain, a couple of hours before their final victory. They were already in great spirits:
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