Italy's successful national team at the home European Championships in Bruneck.

South Tyrol's stock athletes win silver in Bruneck

In a high-class semi-final game, Noah Egger, Fabian Eder, Daniel Stuppner and Matthias Reiterer won the game in extra time and moved into the final of the U23 team game of the European Curling Championships in Bruneck. It was not the only South Tyrolean medal win in the Intercable Arena.

24. February 2024

From: pm

The 4 local heroes only made one mistake in the entire game, after the draw with 3:3 points the victory was decided in the ring. Here the South Tyrolean veterans showed strong nerves and had already achieved more points than Germany after 3 of the 4 attempts.

In the final game against the Austrians, who won the previous play-off game against Germany, the air was out and several mistakes crept in. But silver also shone like gold for the local stick shooters that day.

The European Championship podium for the U23s.

Italy's U16 team won the play-out game against the Czech Republic comfortably, but in the second final game against Germany their European Championship trip was over. A similar fate befell the U2 team. In the first game, the South Tyroleans showed a great performance and made it to the semi-finals. Here too, however, the final stop was against Austria.

Austria dominates

Austria also wins the finals against Germany in the two younger age groups. With 8 gold medals, Austria is the most successful nation at this European Championship.

Before the finals in the team competition, the target team rankings were held on Saturday morning. The South Tyrolean target team secured 3 bronze medals. In the U16, U23 and U23 women's classes, the local participants took the last place on the podium. The first two places were played out between Germany and Austria with a large lead. In the U19 target team ranking, the medals were awarded without South Tyrolean participation. Slovenia secured European Championship bronze with 242 points, 20 points ahead of Italy.

Some comments about the event:

Freddy Zimmerhofer, President of the Organizing Committee: “Before the start of the event, we were very tense as to whether everything would work as we had imagined in the organizational meetings. In the end, we can look back on this event happily; everything went smoothly. The audience was great and created a good atmosphere in the ice rink. We are also particularly pleased about the Slovenians winning a medal in the U19 class. This leads to enthusiasm and euphoria in such small stock sport nations.”

Johann Mulser, competition manager and IFI vice president: “It was a great event and the organization and supporting program worked really well. We have to make an effort to ensure that more stock sport nations take their youth athletes to the European Championships again. Overall, the players and staff will look back on this European Championship with good memories.”

Christian Oberhofer – youth specialist: “After today's team target competitions, the players were disappointed with the low number of points achieved. Here we still have a lot of catching up to do to our neighbors from Germany and Austria. However, for the team games starting at 12 p.m., the athletes were able to put up with the disappointment and played great games for us. Today's highlight is certainly the victory over Germany in the U23 class. We are of course particularly proud of this silver medal.”

Karl Abfalterer, coach of the U19 team: “My team was able to deliver their performance in the team game today and showed the best stock sport of the past few days in the final round. The result of the team target competition naturally dampened the mood, but the athletes were able to regenerate and focus on the upcoming final of the team game.”

Noah Egger, player of the U23 national team: “In the two finals against Switzerland and then against Germany we were able to show great stick sport. We got into the game well and made almost no mistakes. But in the final against Austria we ran out of steam. This silver medal is our crowning achievement of this year’s European Championships.”

The final results:

Team game:
U16: 1. Austria; 2. Germany; 3. Italy (Luisa Bacher, Laurin Lintner Eisenstecken, Michael Mair, Jonas Mittermair, Dominik Sieder); 4. Czech Republic; 5. Lithuania.
U19: 1. Austria; 2.Germany; 3. Italy 5 (Lukas Abfalterer, Marie Hofer, Nadin Karnutsch, Jonathan Mair am Tinkhof, Matthias Plank); 4. Slovenia; 5. Czech Republic; 6. Switzerland.
U23: 1. Austria; 2. Italy (Fabian Eder, Noah Egger, Georg Mumelter, Matthias Reiterer, Daniel Stuppner); 3. Germany; 4. Switzerland.

Target team competition:
U16: 1. Austria 327 points; 2. Germany 306; 3. Italy (Jonas Mittermair, Dominik Sieder, Laurin Eisenstecken Lintner, Luisa Bacher) 185; 4. Czech Republic 116; 5. Lithuania 81.
U19: 1. Germany 287; 2. Austria 278; 3. Slovenia 242; 4. Italy (Nadin Karnutsch, Lukas Abfalterer, Marie Hofer, Matthias Plank) 224; 5. Czech Republic 204; 6. Switzerland 109.
U23: 1. Austria 336; 2. Germany 313; 3. Italy (Matthias Reiterer, Georg Mumelter, Noah Egger, Fabian Eder) 257; 4. Switzerland 169.
U23 women: 1. Austria 317; 2. Germany 315; 3. Italy (Lena Oberleiter, Nadya Dezini, Johanna Kamelger, Nicole Kühbacher) 183; 4. Czech Republic 158.