The UPBF Mens Paintball World Cup took place during 5 & 6 July in conjunction with the NXL Europe Open event in Basildon, UK.
The SANPA National Mens team was amongst 15 countries that competed in this prestigious event where top players from their respective countries were selected to represent their country and compete in the UPBF National Mens Paintball World Cup.
The team was grouped together with Germany, Luxembourg and Belgium in their preliminary bracket.
The battle between Germany and South Africa was intense as the teams looked extremely evenly matched once the games were underway. With limited time left on the clock and the score 3-2 in favor of Germany, South Africa pulled out all the stops to score a point to even the game out between the two countries, however the game plan just didn’t word as planned and after a great show of force by South Africa the German team eliminated the team and had a few seconds left to score the final point giving them a 4-2 victory over South Africa.
Our second prelim game was against Luxembourg where we had a clear 4-1 win.
Our third prelim game was against Belgium where we also scored a 4-1 win
The two victories was enough for South Africa to proceed to the quarter finals, where we met up with one of the strongest countries in paintball, Russia.
The team did their best against Russia, but the experience of this team, was this time around, just too much for South Africa as they took a 4-0 win.
Although not the result we would have liked to see, we ended overall 7th out of 15 countries competing and we are extremely proud of the team and all the support received from spectators at the event as well as from South Africa.
Congratulations also to Russia who was the overall winners of the UPBF National Mens Paintball World Cup for 2018.
We have definitely learned a great deal from this experience and will continue to build on these experiences as we move forward to grow our national teams.
Thank you to GI Sportz / Blades & Triggers as our national paintball sponsors, making sure the team competes with the best international paint available. A big thank you also to Anthrax Paintball for the high quality, amazingly looking jerseys for the team to compete in and look their best.
We would also like to thank all the families, friends and individual sponsors which made it possible for each player on the team to compete and represent their country. Your support is greatly appreciated.
