England U17 International Matt Godfrey became World Champion for the second time in three years this weekend as the Sensas Team England U17s roared to success in the Czech Republic.
Matt Godfrey, gold medalist
Both the U17 and U 21 World Youth Championships took place this weekend (4th and 5th of August), only 60 miles from Prague on the River Labe.
Understandably fishing on home waters the Czech team took full advantage winning both team classifications and the U 21 individual contest as well. However, it was top English youngster Matt Godfrey who managed to prevent the clean sweep as he battled with Czech angler Jan Vesely to take the Gold Medal in the U 17 individual classification.
The Gold medalist Matt Godfrey commented,
“It was an absolutely great feeling to win the competition, on the first day I fished the pole at 10m and managed to catch skimmers and hybrids with some bream later in the day. On the second day I started slowly, but then had a fantastic hour where I caught over 14 kilo of fish, including 8 big bream and around 12 skimmers.
It was hard to believe when you’re fishing against the best anglers in the world that it’s possible to be the best twice, it’s awesome.”
To add to the success at the championships the Sensas Team England U 17s also improved on their bronze medal from 2006 securing silver with a resounding triumph on day two with 12 points taking their overall points tally to 42. Every member of the team did exceptionally well on the second day with three of the team with only one point. It was the hosts that came out on top over the two days with a final point’s score of 32 to take the Gold medal. In Bronze medal position was Slovakia with a disappointing second day letting them down.
The Under 17s, silver medallists
The Drennan Team England U 21 team found themselves in an extremely tough competition with the teams from Eastern Europe dominating the event. The teams found it hard to catch on the long distance waggler and ended up back in 8th place overall.
The team win went to the Czech Republic with 22.5 points overall with Hungary in second place with 42.5 points improving on their bronze medal in 2006. In third place was another Eastern European country Poland on 55.5 points. The level of domination was obvious with all three nations maintaining their position from the first day of fishing.
The highest placed English angler was Callum Dicks in 17th position, with a medley of Eastern European anglers ahead of him. The first place individually fell to Miroslav Blecha from the Czech Republic with two points. Silver fell to Zoltan Farago from Hungary with 3 points and bronze to Jin Bartos from the Czech Republic again with 3 points.
