N° 4 Thursday, 30th May 2013

The Official Newspaper of the Games of the Small States of Europe in Luxembourg 2013

gsse news Medal Table GSSE 2013

Gold Silver Bronze Total

LUX 13 12 12 37

ISL 12 14 11 37

CYP 8 4 8 20

LIE 6 8 5 19

MNE 5 0 1 6

MON 2 4 4 10

SMR 1 2 1 4

AND 1 1 1 3

MLT 0 3 7 10

‘Team Lëtzebuerg’ swims for gold

Table TennisTwo Goldmedals for Luxembourg

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Sport ProgramComplete Sport Program

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Weather Forecast

Rainy 14°/ 7°

Wind 15km/h 210° SW

Thursday, 30th May max. / min.

It comes from tennis! The fa-vourite men’s single player is out of the competition. Benja-min Balleret (Monaco), the only professional tennis player in the Games, was defeated by Luxem-burger Mike Scheidweiler, who re-turned to his previous form. Actu-ally few people bet on his chances as he has recently returned to the non-professional camp. Within the Luxembourg camp young Lux-emburgers Laura Coreira and Tiffa-ny Cornelius qualified for the semi finals. Ugo Nastasi, meanwhile, also qualified in the decisive tie break for a qualifying match for the

Aged only 15 years but with with plenty of experience and tal-ent, Artemis Panteli (Cyprus)dom-inated the qualifying round with 407,5 pts, ahead of Carole Calmes. She dominated the final round as

well and with a total of 203,3 pts she won the competition of the ri-fle competition, ahead by 3,6 pts of Bergenz Julia (Lie/199,7 ). Carole Calmes came in third.

For her the medal was “mission achieved” as she has been plagued by a tendon infection for the last few days.

The victory of the men’s 4x200m freestyle relay epitomised a final where five GSSE records were beaten. Iceland clinched five more victories, including two by Anton McKee, and Liechtenstein also doubled its Gold medal haul thanks to Julia Hassler. (see page 3)

The surprise of the day gold Medal for the 15 year old Panteli (CYP)

(Photo: Marcel Nickels)

Page 2 30th May 2013The Official Newspaper of the Games of the Small States of Europe in Luxembourg 2013

Table Tennis - Team Competition2 gold medals for Luxembourg

Trap shooting in Differdangeshoot-out decidesover gold and Bronze

Yesterday’s gold medalsTABLE TENNIS

Teams Tournament men: LuxembourgTeams Tournament women: LuxembourgSWIMMING, MEN

400m Freestyle: Anton Sveinn McKee (ISL)100m Backstroke: Jean-François Schnei-ders (LUX)200m Breaststroke: Anton Sveinn McKee (ISL)100m Butterfly: Alexandre Bakhtiarov (CYP)4 x 200m Freestyle Relay: Luxembourg

WOMEN

400m Freestyle: Julia Hassler (LIE)100m Backstroke: Eyglo Gustafdottir (ISL)200m Breaststroke: Hrafnhildur Luthersdottir (ISL)100m Butterfly: Julia Hassler (LIE)4 x 200m Freestyle Relay: Iceland

SHOOTING

Air rifle men: Marc-André Kessler (LIE)Air rifle women: Artemis Pantelis (CYP)Trap men: Adonis Mylonas (CYP)

GYMNASTICS

WAG individual: Dominiqua Belanyi (ISL)WAG Team: Iceland

iMPrESSuMPublisher / Editing

Comité Olympique et Sportif Luxembourgeois (COSL)Graphic & Layout

COSL, Gilles MehlingerPrint / EditionEditpress, 2.500

Photo CreditEditpress / Tageblatt

As expected Luxembourg won both Gold medals in the women and men’s team competitions.While the ladies dominated,

leaving just five sets to their opponents in the whole tournament, and winning all their matches by 3-0, the highlight of the men’s competition, this time without the defending champion Cyprus – was between Luxembourg and Monaco. In the catacombs of the Coque the atmosphere was

Thursday, 30th May sports ProgramBASKETBALL 16.00 San Marino - Cyprus (M) 18.15: Luxembourg – Malta (W), 20.30: Ice-land – Andorra (M)BEACHvOLLEY 13.00: Monaco – Cyprus (W), 14.00: Iceland-Andorra (W), 15.00: Cyprus – Monaco (M), 16.00: Luxembourg – Liech-tenstein (M), 17.00: Liechtenstein – Luxem-bourg (W), 18.00: Andorra – Iceland (M)JUDO as from 12.00: Qualifying rounds Teams (M/W), as from 15.00: Team Finals (M/W)GYMNASTICS 14.30: MAG floor, 15.10: MAG Pommel horse – WAG vault, 15.50: MAG rings – WAG bars, 17.45: MAG vault, WAG beam, 18.25: MAG bars – WAG floor, 19.05: MAG high barATHLETICS 16.30: 110 m h. (M/F), 16.45: 100 m h (W) 16.55: Pole vault (F) , 17.00: 400 m (M/F), 17.10: 400 m (W/F), 17.15: Discus Throw (M/F), 17.25: 1500 m (M/F), 17.40: 200 m (M), 17.55: 200 m (W), 18.10: High Jump (W/F), 18.15: Long Jump (M/F), 18.20: 3000 m Steeple (W/F), 18.40: 1500

m (W/F), 19.00: 400 m h (M/F), 19.15: 400 m h (W/F)CYCLING 14.00: Road race (M/W)SWIMMING 10.00: 50 m Freestyle (W), 10.06: 50 m Freestyle (M), 10.12: 100 m Breaststoke (W), 10.20: 100 m Breaststroke (M), 10.28: 200 m Freestyle (W), 10.38: 200 m Freestyle (M), 17.30: 50 m Freestyle (W/F), 17.35: 50 m Freestyle (M/F), 17.40: 100 m Breaststroke (W/F), 17.45: 100 m Breaststroke (M/F), 17.50: 200 m Freestyle (W/F), 17.58: 200 m Freestyle (M/F), 18.30: 4 x 100 m Medley Relay (W/F), 18.40: 4 x 100 m Medley Relay (M/F)TENNIS as from 09.00: ¼ Doubles women and ½ Doubles Men, as from 14.00: ¼ Dou-bles mixte followed by ½ Doubles WomenTABLE TENNIS as from 10.00: 1st round dou-bles (M/W), 10.30: 2nd round Doubles (M/W), 11.00: 3rd round doubles (M/W), 14.30: 4th round doubles (W), 15.30: doubles ½ finals, 16.15: Double Final (W), 17.00: Double Fi-nal (M)vOLLEYBALL 13.30: San Marino – Cyprus (W), 15.00: Cyprus – Iceland (m), 17.30: Luxem-bourg – Iceland (w), 20.00: Luxembourg – San Marino (m)

During the competition 4 of the shooters had to go into a shoot-out; they were Mylonas Adonis and Marios Sophocleous (CYP), Manuel Mancini (SMR) and Lyndon Sosa (LUX).Whereas the two Cyprus

competitors fought for Gold and Silver, Sosa and Mancini fought it out for the Bronze Medal. During

the last decisive round Adonis had the better nerves and he hit first clay, whereas Sophocleous missed his shot and got the Silver Medal. Similar scenario for Mancini against Sosa, who finished with the Bronze Medal, which makes this the 2nd Bronze medal for Luxembourg in the shooting competition.

tense and the spectators watched a roller-coaster game The defeat of Gilles Michely

against David Samson, Monaco No. 2 Monaco, in a very tight first match, going to fifth set, was not necessarily expected in the camp of Luxembourg. All concentration was on the Monaco player Anthony Peretti, who had lost only one game so far (against Simon Gerada of Malta), and was seen as “the most dangerous”

in the field. Once more the indestructible Traian Ciociu was under pressure to get the decisive points for Luxembourg. He made it and Luxembourg won the Gold Medal.

Medals in the team competition:Women: Luxembourg (Gold),

Malta (Silver), Monaco and San Marino (Bronze)Men: Luxembourg (Gold), Monaco

(Silver), Malta and Montenegro

The royal family supports the GSSE

30th May 2013 Page 3 The Official Newspaper of the Games of the Small States of Europe in Luxembourg 2013

Iceland rides the golden wave

D’Coque: the heart of the gsseDedicated to sport and culture ! Latest news

Nearly half of the sport disciplines of the GSSE, namely basketball, swimming, table tennis, volleyball and beach volley, are taking place in the National Sports and Cultural Centre of Kirchberg which also hosts the media centre and the main center of the organisation and is thus the key location of these 15th GSSE. D’Coque, (“the shell”) as it

is usually called because of the characteristic shape of its structure, celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2012. A true

success story, it has received more than 11 million visitors since the opening of the first phase in 1982. Already in February, 1974 the

French architect Roger Taillibert presented an ambitious project including an Olympic indoor swimming pool, a multi-purpose sports centre and an outdoor stadium. The works of the first phase began in 1979 and the inauguration of the aquatic centre took place in April 1982. At the end of 1985 the second phase, the multi-purpose sports

complex, was finally relaunched. The project added an important cultural dimension by allowing in the same complex major events which could welcome up to 8000 spectators. The futuristic design of the complex, inaugurated in June 2002 has not lost anything of its modernity four decades after its conception, allowing both parts of d’Coque to complement one another in a harmonious architecture. A harmony that was also created between sport and larger cultural events.

The second day of swimming saw Iceland widen its lead by winning five out of 10 possible Gold medals in the pool yesterday.The final relays (4x200m freestlye)

lived up to expectations with a narrow victory by the Icelanders (W) over the Luxembourgers and a payback by the boys in the last leg in front of a frenzied crowd. The finals of the afternoon began at the same pace as Tuesday with two GSSE records set within the first races, the 100 m backstroke, established by Iceland’s Eyglo Gustafsdottir for the women and Luxembourger Jean-François Schneiders for the men.The latter won a full house,

picking up his third Gold medal in three races since the start of the swimming events and improving on the national record.Julia Hassler (photo), in which

Liechtenstein is counting a lot during the Games to increase its ranking in the medal table, did not disappoint winning two Gold medals in addition to those won on Tuesday. It was a similar performance for Icelander Anton Sveinn McKee, who twice climbed the highest step on the podium.

A total of 5 new GSSE records were set yesterday in addition to the backstroke with Hrafnhildur Luthersdottir setting a new record for 100m breaststroke and two for relays. These records which, combined with four others beatenn on Wednesday may well rank the 15th GSSE among the

fastest in history for swimming. At the end of the second day Iceland was in the lead with 8 Gold medals, ahead of Luxembourg (5) and Liechtenstein (4). Cypriot Alexandre Bakhtiarov helped his country win its first Gold medal for swimming in the GSSE 2013. volleyball (W) (LUX-SMR): 3-2

volleyball (M) (LUX-MON): 3-1

Basketball (M) (LUX-ISL): 88-61Photo: A. Maringer

Page 4 30th May 2013The Official Newspaper of the Games of the Small States of Europe in Luxembourg 2013

gsse PeOPLeHappy Birthday Ciaran McKay! Volunteer celebrates 50th at P+R Bouillon

volunteering on your birthday may not be everyone’s first priority, particularly if you’re turning half a century.But for Irish national Ciaran

McKay, who celebrated his 50th birthday on Wednesday, he is more than happy to be helping as a Luxembourg volunteer for the Games of the Small States of Europe.“When I signed up to volunteer I

didn’t think about it. I guess when

you reach a certain age birthdays, especially a fiftieth, you might not want to mark it!” he told GSSE news.The father-of-two, who works

in finance and has lived in Luxembourg for 27 years spent Wednesday, raising awareness about the Games at the information stand at P+R Bouillon.But it wasn’t all hard work –

he brought some home-made Irish scones to share with fellow

volunteers and was presented with a birthday cake and candle by GSSE news.A keen sportsman himself, Ciaran

leapt at the chance to volunteer after hearing about the appeal in November last year. “This was a way of saying instead of going on holiday I’m having a different holiday here,” he said, adding: “It’s the opportunity to meet different people- it’s the social contact with other people and athletes here.”And his efforts have not gone

unnoticed. While stationed at the information stand in Place Guillaume II, Luxembourg City mayor Xavier Bettel joined Ciaran for a chat. He also appreciated the lunch boxes prepared for volunteers on Monday evening, which allowed them to eat before watching the official opening ceremony at Stade Josy Barthel.“I genuinely feel the volunteers

are strongly appreciated,” he concluded.

Bruno Baltzer puts those who finish fourth in the spotlight

Happy Birthdayto the AthletesNorma Zambon (LUX)29th May 1978, Beach volleyballFlorentia Kappa (CYP)29th May 1988, AthleticsAlexandre Pettinati (MON)31th May 1980, CyclingAnnalena MACH (LUX)1st June1995, volleyballJean Cox (LUX)1st June1992, Basketball

H.e. Vanessa Frazier

H.E. vanessa Frazier, Ambassador of Malta to Belgium and Luxembourg and a mother of two young children forms part of the Maltese national team. Her sport is judo and she started at the age of 13, competing three years later and today forms part of the judo team in the 52 kilo women’s light weight category at the Small Nations Games being held in Luxembourg. Without her, the Maltese Judo team would have been incomplete due to her weight category. Besides practising other sports, judo has always been her favourite. Her commitment, discipline and teamwork to the sport have helped in her successful career and have kept her fit and healthy. This commitment has been immensely valuable in her life and it has been a lesson that has helped her progress throughout her career.

QUOTE OF THE DAYAfter attending three Olympic Games as a sports journalist, did you get a sense of the Olympic spirit at the GSSE?RTL journalist Andreas Schnabel: “Finally, I found it here. The GSSE in Luxembourg has exactly what authorities of the Olympic Committee are always talking about. Here you find the true spirit of the Games and a real passion for sports.”

Photographer Bruno Baltzer is artist in residence at d’Coque during the GSSE where his job is not to pho-tograph the winners – but those who finish fourth.Bruno Baltzer, tell us about your project?The Luxembourg Ministry of Culture contacted me to participate in the GSSE cultural programme. The

ministry fell in love with the idea of a project which focuses not on the winner or champion but on the people who come fourth, who don’t get a place on the podium. The Poulidor!That’s what we call it. One of my first projects was about the cyclist Raymond Poulidor (who always came

in second place). That inspired me to focus on the people who don’t win the medals.The idea is to invite these fourth placers to spend half an hour in my studio at d’Coque’s conference room

5.I’ve set up a photographic and video system which allows me to work specifically on portraits. It’s based

around timing and lighting. Under specific shooting conditions- I lengthen the exposure up to 10 seconds- I ask the athlete to relive moments from the final.Where can we see the results ? For the moment, nowhere. But, I’m not ruling out an exhibition. From

Thursday, the videos will be projected on screens in the sports venues. You will see the portraits in black and white, which hardly move. They are almost photographic portraits but the media still video. Time is stretched. It is a kind of slow motion.Do they pose in their sports kit?I do not expect them to pose as athletes. They are very beautiful. The

fourth finisher is the one which missed the limelight, who has no right to be in the photo.How do you organise yourself?One must find the person who finished fourth. I spend a lot more time

looking for them, hunting them down and convincing them to pose for the work.How will you do team portraits?Most likely I will not cover the teams. I considered it but

for now I will concentrate on individuals. In addition, I won’t be able to cover them all. I go to training and meal times to meet them.Athletes who finish fourth should contact Bruno Baltzer