Greif Masters 2010 Bike Polo Tournament

8 February 2010

Last weekend, on my way to ISPO for the Black Crows stand (more on this later), I stopped in Karlsruhe for the Greif Masters Bike Polo tournament. Probably the biggest European tourney so far, with 40 teams from France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Holland, the UK, and more… 14 teams were lucky enough to get invited (we were!), and the others registered. This tournament gave us a glimpse of what the future of our sport could be:

A giant screen with timekeeping, scores, team logos, upcoming games, etc… Very nice design by Steffen Mackert of the Candy Colored Clowns:

Custom-made goals, wider than the usual “cone to cone” standard in bike polo, with nets:

Solid (and very local-flavored) tap-out points:

A big and warm indoor venue, with the fantastic bonus of having a high vantage point:

And for once, our team, Zombie United, did pretty well. We won all our qualifying matches apart from one draw, and lost in the semi-finals to the winners, L’Equipe (who win every European tourney anyway). Finished 3rd! Thanks to Fixie Inc. and all the Karlsruhe players for setting a benchmark…