I’m incredibly lucky with my job to cover some amazing events for the telly on BT Sport. I’m also hugely privileged to manage both the men’s and women’s carp teams. September has been a whirlwind of competition and coverage, and has played host to some amazing experiences.
The Womens World Carp Fishing Championships was a resounding success, both as an event and with regard to our medals tally. We came away with a silver in the team event and an individual bronze.
It wasn’t easy, though. England led for most of the way, dropped to bronze, then climbed back to silver on the last morning. In the end just one fish separated Ukrainian gold from English silver, the same margin for English silver from Latvian bronze. It just shows that the winners in angling, as in all top-level sports, are separated by the smallest of margins.
This result, coupled with a bronze last time out, puts England ladies No1 in the World rankings, and it got me thinking about rankings here in the UK. The UK Champs recently won by Steve Forster saw six anglers going into the final round tied on points – the closest final round in history. It was a similar story with the British Carp Angling Champs finals... a full-on battle, with five pairs in contention right up until the last hour. Rob Burgess and Karl Palmer won it in the last 10 minutes.
Consistency always trumps a one-off big win. A ranking system like they have in the UK Champs and in FIPS Ed World events could easily be set up in the UK for certain qualifying events.
All other sports have ranking systems, so why not us?
