Was Something Fishy Going on At World Angling Contest?
> 2012-10-25 07:27:40.767 GMT
>
>
> Rosa Silverman
> Oct. 25 (Telegraph) -- England suffered a heavy defeat at
> this year's World Carp Angling Championships, but the team says
> the odds were stacked against them due to questionable Romanian
> tactics.
> The world of competitive angling might not sound especially
> cut-throat, but a defeated England team has protested that
> something fishy was going on in a recent world contest.
> The Korda England Carp team came a disappointing 18th in
> this year’s World Carp Angling Championships, held at Lac Corbu
> in Romania.
> But victory was never likely to be theirs, they say, as the
> host nation had employed tactics that England suggests were
> morally dubious and perhaps not “in the spirit of fair play.”
> A match report on the Angling Trust website says the
> competition, held between September 27 and 30, was “marred” by
> the use of a venue where the fish had been fed on a single
> soluble bait for five months.
> Only a few of the competing countries were aware of this and
> so those teams had a “very significant advantage”, it was
> claimed.
> Romania dominated the event, comfortably winning the
> competition, while neighbouring Bulgaria finished second and
> another next-door country, Serbia, came third.
> Ian Huntington, Korda England Carp Team manager said:
> “Despite putting in a tremendous amount of work this year leading
> up to the event, the outcome turned out to be never in any doubt
> from the host nation’s point of view.
> “The key to the match, and what we did not know, was the
> carp had been fed with one single type of soluble bait since they
> were stocked into Lac Corbu in May 2012. “Consequently countries
> that had been and practised a number of times at the venue were
> aware of this and managed to get local bait to enable them to
> compete.
> “The neighbouring Bulgarians commissioned their own bait
> based on what had been fed to the fish. Portugal and Serbia had
> contacts in Romania who provided bait.
> “We only discovered after the match that the fish were fed
> daily throughout the summer by boat on the Romanian bait from
> fixed lines parallel with the bank.”
> It was obvious, he said, that any team fishing with the
> right type of bait would do well while the rest would “really
> struggle to get a bite”.
> Mr Huntington added: “Within two hours of the match starting
> we were asking ourselves questions about the bait.”
> South Africa and France had also been unaware of the bait
> issue, and the defeated teams together wasted some £10,000 worth
> of bait, or “boilies”.
> The Romanians’ tactic was not against the rules, but this
> was of little comfort to the England team.
> Mr Huntington said: “Hard lessons have been learnt and it
> has been a very difficult experience to pick the team and
> ourselves up after this event.
> “We are extremely disappointed that the water was fed with a
> single bait. While this is not strictly against the rules, and
> the Romanians freely admitted to doing it, we feel that there is
> a moral issue here, and question whether this practice is in the
> spirit of fair play.”
> If other host nations followed suit in ..... events, the
> result could be a break up of the competition, he warned.
> Dick Clegg, international events manager for the Angling
> Trust, said: “It is obvious from the information that I have
> received that questions need to be asked about certain aspects of
> the event.
> “I will certainly require an explanation about a number of
> problems arising from this Championship.”
>
>
> Source:
>
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/others ... ntest.html
>