This year's British Open was held at City University in London for the second time and was a very enjoyable event involving players from the countries whose flags can be seen above.
For the third year in a row, the Hungarians almost swept the main medals. No. 2 seed Zoltán Németh TTM ITM won his last five games in the Final to win the title. The defending champion, no. 4 seed Attila 'the Hun' Mikulán TTM, was determined to become the first player to win the British Open twice, but after leading most of the way through the Final, a Round 7 loss meant that he missed out to Zoltán by just 3 TPs, having beaten him by just 0.6 TPs the year before. Attila has now played in the British Open three times and is yet to finish outside the top two!
Reigning French Open Champion and last year's British Open Rising Star gold medallist Angharad Taylor, the no. 7 seed from Canterbury, was the top UK player, winning the overall bronze medal and preventing the Hungarian 'sweep'. Knaresborough's Rob Morton TTM ITM, the 2004 Champion and no. 1 seed this year, having just won the German Open, finished 5th, Twickenham's Rich Yagodich, the no. 8 seed, was 6th and unseeded Marion Scott from Wolverhampton also did very well to reach the Final, finishing 8th just behind 2003 Champion Ben Polman ITM, who led the Dutch charge.
There was home success in the Junior competition, with Belfast's Simon Wright ITM finally getting his hands on the U18 gold medal in the last year he is eligible for it. He edged out the USA's Joe Ruby, who took the silver, with the bronze going to Bromsgrove's Stephen Purkiss in his first British Open.
Stephen Purkiss also took home the Rising Stars gold medal, ahead of Petra Wark from the Netherlands, with the youngest player at the event, 10-year-old Robert Mitchell from St Neots, winning a very tight battle for the bronze, which any of the five players in Division 2 who were chasing that medal still had a chance of winning going into the final round.
The final positions of all entrants can be seen at the bottom of this page, with detailed results available by following the links below. Additional pictures will follow soon and you may also find links to pictures taken by some of the players starting to appear on the forum.
This year's British Open was held at City University in London for the second time and was a very enjoyable event involving players from the countries whose flags can be seen above.
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