EPC 2014: The European Pinball Competition in Italy (Rimini, 21-23 March) and online with the live streaming on GiocoNewsPlayer.it

blog post courtesy of Alessio Crisantemi

After months of waiting throughout the continent, it is time for the European Sports Pinball Championship who arrives in Italy for the first time in history. The Fiera di Rimini, through Enada, holds it and offers the performance of the most fashionable sport at the time to the public and to the operators of the field, and not only just to players.

We announced it as an exceptional event, and the answer obtained, between public and players, confirms the great expectations. The European Pinball Championship prepares its debut in Italy with the general enthusiasm and promises a high level challenge. After the general call of IFPA Italia, which organized the event along with Tecnoplay and Rimini Fiera and closed the enrollments to the event in mid-January, the answer of the pinball's people was an explosive one. To the point that the 190 seats, originally planned as maximum limit to take part in the event, have been sold out after only few hours later the opening of the enrollments, forcing the organizers to reconsider the entire organization of the competition, raising the limit to 240 participants.

An all-time record never achieved by the event so far (the previous record was achieved by the EPC 2013 of Stockholm with 190 enrollments), which seems even more amazing considering that the requests to participate had exceeded even the 300 ones. Another record of the Italian edition of the EPC are the countries represented, with 15 National Teams that will compete in the team competition, for a total of 17 countries that count at least one player in the competition. The largest delegation is the Italian one, with 43 players, followed by 30 players from Germany, 21 from Belgium and 20 from Hungary, until 6 players from Romania, 4 from Finland and 1 player from Slovenia. With 1 player even coming from Canada. He is Robert Gagno, the only participant from North America, an autistic boy but a real star of sports pinball, which is in the twelfth position in the world ranking. He appears to the European show as one of the favourites players, although, in case of a victory, the title of European Champion would go to the player came at the second place. But the prestige gained and the points for the world ranking will be confirmed.

But it will not be easy to win the most important title taking into account that the strongest players on the world will be present. First of all, our Daniel Acciari, two time world champion and currently number 3 in the world ranking, who will fight until the last ball not to miss the opportunity to win the only trophy missing on his personal list of trophies, that he could win just in its own land. But he will have to deal with another big favorite players: the Swedish world champion in office Jorgen Holm, number 4 in the ranking. Among other prominent personalities ( and some of them have already won a European title): the Dutch Jogma Paul, the Swiss Robert Suttter, the French Frank Bona and the other Swiss Levente Tregova. It is worth mentioning, however, the presence of other top level players such as the Sweden Mats Runsten, currently number 10 in the world, the Spanish Julio Vicario Soriano, the Hungarian Krisztián Szalai, the German Andreas Harre, (vice world champion in 2011), or the French Timothée Hulin Bouard and Alain Boulieu, and many  other that will surely give a hard time. Looking at Italy, in addition to the usual Acciari, we have high hopes for Roberto Pedroni and Cesare d' Atri, numbers 2 and 3 of the Italian ranking, which are sure that can compete on the same level of the European pinball's “elite”. And just these three players will wear the Technoplay's shirt of the Italian National Team at the European Championship (along with a fourth player between Mauro Spiga and Mario Anzini, according to the verdict of the last hour ranking), but even at the more important challenge of 2014 World Champions that will be held in Denver, Colorado, in late May.

The European Pinball Championship 2014
The European Sports Pinball Championship will take place in March for the first time ever in Italy. The Rimini fair will host the most important competition of the Old Continent – thanks to a partnership between IFPA Italia and Rimini Fiera SpA – which will open its doors to the competitive pinball on the occasion of Enada Spring 2014. The European Championship, in fact, is one of the side events of the next Enada (hence the sponsorship of the event and of the National Association SAPAR who is the organizer), and for this reason it will be held from Friday, March 21, 2014 (last day of Enada, which starts on the 19th) until the following Sunday, 23. But during the fair, in the two previous days, IFPA Italia and Technoplay – Official partner of Italian sports pinball – organize another warm-up tournament in view of the European one, where the new Stern pinball dedicated to the Ford Mustang and realized in partnership with the American automaker, will be presented a preview.

(all info on: www.ifpaitalia.it – www.europinball.org)