A new and exciting competition, the Conquest Cup, was held on Wednesday 29 May in Istanbul. It was a competition between two Continents competing against each other as a team, Europe against Asia.
Both Europe and Asia selected four men and four women each to challenge each other in individual, team and mixed team matches.
The European team was formed by: Marco Galiazzo (ITA), Rick Van Der Ven /NED), Gael Prevost (FRA), Natalia Erdynieva (RUS), Christine Bjerendal (SWE), Naomi Folkard (GBR), and the Turks Begul Lokluoglu and Fatih Bozlar. Coaches: Dutch Wietse Van Alten (current Italian coach) and Russian Stanislav Zabrodski.
The Asian Team, very competitive thanks to the presence of several Olympic medalist, was formed by: Yun Mi-Jin (KOR), Kim Bubmin (KOR), Ren Hayakawa (JPN), Yu Ishizu (JPN), Atul Verma (IND), Padya Wati Sardar (IND), Lin Chia-En (TPE), Kuo Cheng-Wei (TPE). Asia will be coached by Korean Koo Ja Chung and coaches from Chinese Taipei Chin Kuei-Fang and Lin Cheng-Hsein.
The competition was very exciting and was uncertain until the end. After the morning session, each continent won 4 matches and concluded with individual matches tied (4-4) , but in the afternoon’s team matches Asia secured a final victory 9-11.
Turkish Prime Minister, Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, awarded gold medals and trophies to both teams. Mr Kadir Topbas , Mayor of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, awarded Europe silver medals.