It all started in 1981, 33 years ago. It didn鈥檛 begin in Viersen, not even in Europe, but in鈥exico City: the first Three-Cushion World Championship for Teams with the then famous tandem Nobuaki Kobayashi and Junichi Komori, who won from the Belgian team with multiple champions Raymond Ceulemans and Ludo Dielis.
After a second edition in 1985 in Bordeaux, France, and a third one in Madrid, Spain, in 1987, the German Billiard Federation (DBU) headed by its President Wolfgang Rittmann, brought the World Championship in 1990 to the town of Viersen. Since then, the World Championship has been held every year in the town of Viersen without any interruption.
The World Championship has become a standard all over the world.
Thanks to the organizing committee and the support of the town of Viersen, this World Championship has become one of the most important highlights of the sports season.
Players, delegates, but also fans come from all over the world.
The original format foresaw a minimum of eight competing teams. Since then, and almost as a rule, more than 20 different countries from four continents participate each year. Each continent chooses their representatives depending on continental rankings or results and sometimes on specific qualifying matches.
For over the past 10 years, a world ranking of all teams has been held. The results of the last five years are decisive for this ranking and demonstrate the strengths of specific countries. Belgium, Germany, Korea, Spain, Turkey and The Netherlands are leading countries.
One could also look at the number of medals that each federation has obtained. Leading this ranking by far is the organizing German federation, followed by Sweden and The Netherlands.
Whatever kind of ranking or format is applied, each year we look forward to this top event, which not only determines the best national three-cushion team, but also demonstrates the progress of some new regions in the international world of billiards.
We are very aware of the difficulties encountered each year by an organizing committee to achieve this top level of organization, but we sincerely wish, together with many supporters, that the World Championship will be organized for many more years to come.
Our very sincere congratulations to all the people who have helped to make all these twenty-eight World Championships possible
Jean-Claude Dupont
UMB-President
Twenty- Eight Years Three-Cusion World Championship for National Teams
Each year the best teams and the absolute best players meet each other in a four-day struggle for the title.
Published on: February 19, 2014