You guys are fast,thanks for the updates, 9th place ind. by the way is Ramacciotti (Maurizio). It's easy to butcher those long Italian last names...
My impressions:
Our US team ranking is getting better every world championship
in recent years and that we beat Tahiti and almost beat France says a hell of a lot. I haven't seen the points spread yet but considering we beat Greece, always a top contender and the rest of the Anglosaxon countries like South Africa and Australia and New Zealand also is indicative of huge improvement. I am really glad to see that. I think that the growth in the sport in the last six years has fostered more competitive US spearfishing team and a stronger Nationals program. Bigger more organized teams attending as opposed to less than ten years ago when the only guys who went were the US team members themselves, usually Bill and John Ernst and the Maguire brothers, footing all the bills out of pocket as well.
First reaction is a lot of people's surprise Stefano Bellani beat out Pedro Carbonel, we all thought the guy was unbeatable on a world championship level. Having been the only one to beat the great champions (Jose Amengual-Spain/Renzo Mazzari both with 3 world championships), most people figured he was the Lance Armstrong of spearfishing for years to come.
On second thought however Stefano placed 1st at European Championships in Lagos last year (the tournament that determines the team members for each European nation usually) and the other time he beat him in Arbatax in Sardinia already as well. In a nutshell, the ex Omer ex Picasso and now Italian color carrier for the Cressi Team is in his best form in decades of spearfishing as this result shows. A monster in the deep and fast rhythm hunter in the shallows, it's a well deserved first for him. Also glad to see Bruno De Silvestri in 4th place, since he's from my old home island of Sardinia.
An amazing deep grouper hunter in clear water, I'm surprised to see him adapt so well to murky cold conditions. Jose Vina of Spain back on top too is interesting, if I recall he won in Iquique Chile before favoring these conditions.
http://62.152.107.252/apneamagazine/allegati/news22062004.pdf
Looks like Chile had the obvious home court advanatage but that they could defend their turf from Italy,Spain and France really says a lot. That the USA was one place behind France is just awesome!
Ted Buyon if you read this-11th place for your countrymen??
common I'm not impressed;-) your boy Paulo Pacheco got spanked or maybe he wasn't there. Didn't even see him in the top ten. Congrats to Dennis Haussler, Bob Humphrey and Mile Maguire for a nice meet, the US womens team for 2nd place, and the amazing support they got from veterans team Capt. Rene Rojas, Bill Ernst and Mike Maguire who I'm sure helped them a lot.
This is a link with some photos of Stefano Bellani after his win at the last Europeans. Scott T, sure you missed being there, I hear the reception the athletes received exceeded even the world meet in Tahiti parade.
http://www.apneamagazine.com/articolo.php/569
Mark