NAM
IS THE MAN OF EUROPEAN FREESTYLE!!!
Kaos Footballista,
Nam the Man has
become the latest European Football Freestyle Champion by winning the 2008 Komball
Competition in Paris
on Sunday!
Nam defeated hometown hero and crowd favourite, Sean from the Komball Team; in an
exciting final that went to the wire and was shown live on Eurosport 2!
The
final decision by the three judges favoured Nam two votes to one. All sixteen competitors involved in the invitation only
event were of the highest calibre and included the likes of Mr Woo, John
Farnworth, Palle and Abbas Farid as well as competitors from Germany, Poland,
Hungry and of course, France!
The competition was conducted over two days with the first
round being a straight three minute individual performance; from which the
highest placed eight competitors progressed to the next day’s Quarter-Finals.
The Quarter- Finals saw a new concept in Football Freestyle
competition introduced with each of the Quarter-Finalists paired up with each
other to then battle it out with two one minute rounds to impress the judges! T
his new format caught out some of the hardened veterans of
such competitions which saw both Mr Woo and John Farnworth surprisingly knocked
out at this Quarter-Final stage!
Indeed, it was the French who adapted best to this format
and this saw all three of the French competitors join Nam to progress
into the Semi-Finals.
In the end, Nam
did enough to wow both the crowd and the judges with his combination of great
Football Freestyling ability, general showmanship and his unique acrobatic/dance
style!
Nam
said, “Winning this competition is unbelievable and I have now achieved one of
my main goals since becoming a Football Freestyler! I’ve always dreamed of
winning such a big competition and given all the great talent that was here
today; makes the win all the more special for me!:
Event organiser, Guillaume Charny-Brunet and his team are to
be fully congratulated for the great effort and energy shown in putting on such
a great competition; and in especially gaining LIVE television coverage through
Eurosport 2 – a first for a European based competition!
However, the event was not without controversy with many
asking about what seemed the overuse of hands and dance elements in many of the
routines. “We have to try and get the balance right next time and it is time
for a set of competition rules & regulations to be formulated to not only
to assist the judges make well informed decisions, but to help all the
competitors by setting performance parameters without stifling creativity!”
commented Mr Charny-Brunet.
The full list of competitors was as follows:
Nam the Man (Ireland), Palle (Sweden), Nedzab Brajic
(Bosnia), Abbas Farid (Wales), John Farnworth (England), Mr Woo (England),
Rocco (Hungary), Bartek Berdzik (Poland), Petike (Hungary), Camil Hauser
(Germany), Tommy Rist (Germany), Andreas (France), Matt (France), Sean
(France), Djminho (France) and Karim Mallem (France)
