Venue for 2018 WGU championships announced

It has just been announced that São Paolo will host the 2018 WGU championships. A date in September or November will be chosen.

If current selection policy is to be continued this will mean that the National Gateball Championships to be held in EDSACC, Bateau Bay, NSW, will be where the selection will take place.

Gateball Australia will review the current process later this year. Submissions will be welcomed from anyone interested.

Europe tries some creative solutions

Having promoted  Gateball Come and Try Sessions for a number of years in Belgium, France, Germany Switzerland and the UK, a European brains trust of David Underhill, Bernard Thys and John Swabey have decided to promote a Gateball League.

The difficult challenge of finding two teams with at least five players in each team has led the European team to organise a series of events in a Gateball League. Each tournament in the series will follow the same format which will run over three days. The first day will largely be training and explanations which will allow beginners to start playing. On the following two days, usually over a weekend, doubles and singles will be played. A detailed description of the league format is described here. 

Events for 2016 have already been planned at Einschmidt in Germany from the 22^nd to 24^th April and at Beaune in France from the 1^st to the 3^rd July. This link provides further information.

The events are open to visitors from other parts of the world.

The Europeans have structured their events like this for a number of reasons. They hope that it enables them to develop a track record as organisers of gateball events which will establish their credentials with prospective sponsors. They plan that this is a step towards gateball teams events in Europe and would like other countries other countries to adopt their format.