What’s new from the HYLO® Sport family
The year has only just begun, but our #hyloathletes have already been out about over the new year period and during the first few days of 2024. We take a look back at the latest events and competitions in recent days featuring our athletes, teams and clubs.
Gabriel Clemens in third round of the World Darts Championship
Since Saarland darts pro Gabriel Clemens’s greatest success at last year’s World Darts Championship, Germany has been gripped by darts fever on its TV screens over the new year season. This time, things kicked off on 15 December 2023 with great hopes and expectations for the PDC World Darts Championship 2024 in London. As a seeded top-32 player, the Saarland pro went straight into the second round of the tournament and was able to gain a confident win in his match on 21 December against surprise qualifier Man Lok Leung of Hong Kong. With a checkout rate of over 50% and a total of three high finishes, Clemens was more than up to the job.
In the third round, the German Giant then had to admit defeat to British player and world number 10 Dave Chisnall with a 4:1 score and join the other German participants on their journey home.
Clemens, the top German player, enters the new year at 22nd place in the world rankings. The beginning of February (1 to 4 February 2024) sees his first major tournament of the year, the Masters in Milton Keynes (GB). Only the top 24 in the current Order of Merit world rankings after the World Championship are permitted to appear on the Masters starting line. The Saarland player is competing for the third time in a row., and his first game will be against Australian competitor Damon Heta.
1. FCS Tischtennis finishes second in the cup final four
Sunday (7 January 2024) marked the first highlight of the year for 1. FC Saarbrücken Tischtennis. The Saarland players were among the last four teams of the German Table Tennis Cup for the final four competition in Neu-Ulm. In their semi-final, they faced TTF Liebherr Ochsenhausen for what proved to be as exciting and close an encounter as expected. In a three-hour table tennis thriller, FCS TT finally won out with a close score of 3:2 in the concluding doubles match with team captain Patrick Franziska and cup newcomer Cedric Meissner, to gain entry to the final. Darko Jorgic and the captain had previously gained valuable points for the Saarland team in their singles matches.
The other semi-final match, played at the same time, saw Borussia Düsseldorf beat ASV Grünwettersbach 3:1. And so, as has happened so many times in recent years, the final was another duel between these long-term rivals from Saarbrücken and Düsseldorf.
Unlike in the 2021 cup final or the 2023 Champions League final, this time the Saarbrücken players had to make do with second place. The Düsseldorf team were already confirmed as the final winners after the first three singles matches, and were able to celebrate their 28th cup win in front of 5000 spectators in Neu-Ulm. Dang Qiu, Anton Källberg and Timo Boll were just too strong on this particular day. German number one Dang Qiu gave no chances away to Yuro Muramatsu and Källberg did the same to Franziska, both winning 3:0. Although Darko Jorgic fought his way to turn things around through to a deciding fifth set against past master Timo Boll, he was ultimately not able to prevent FCS Tischtennis’s clear defeat. The first title of the year therefore went to the Rhine team.
The Saarland players have other opportunities for titles this year in the Tischtennis Bundesliga (TTBL) and the Champions League. FCS TT are currently in second place in the TTBL behind Düsseldorf, and the Saarland team will host the final four for the top league, which will take place in Saarbrücken over the Easter weekend. FCS’s federal league play begins again on Saturday (13 January) with an away game in Mainz.
Saarlouis Royals kick off the year in style
On Sunday (7 January 2024), the Saarlouis Royals began the new year of the Damen-Basketball-Bundesliga with an exciting, close away win against GiroLive Panthers Osnabrück. Despite a difficult start to the match and a significant deficit at half time, the Royals put in an impressive performance and were able to keep closing the gap on their opponents. After an exciting final quarter that saw the lead change hands multiple times, the Royals stepped out in front just before the finish. With just nine seconds of play remaining and a score of 80:81 in the Royals’ favour, Osnabrück took a time out. The Panthers’ final play resulted in a shot at the basket, but the ball failed to hit its mark and rebounded to be caught by Saarlouis player Destiny Littleton – at which point the final buzzer sounded and Saarlouis claimed the tight away win.
This success and eighth place in the table represent a perfect start to the year for the Saarlouis Royals, and a reward for their strong performance. Their task now is to recover quickly and put in a similar performance for the cup quarter final against BC Pharmaserv on Wednesday (10 January), to qualify for the final four. On Saturday (13 January), the Saarlouis basketball players are then hosting Eisvögel USC Freiburg at the Stadtgartenhalle in Saarlouis for the fifteenth day of play in the federal league.
KSV Köllerbach lose semi-final first leg for the German championships
On Saturday (6 January 2024), the wrestlers of KSV Köllerbach were defeated by SC Siegfried Kleinostheim in the playoffs for the German team championships. The first leg of the semi-final in Kleinostheim ended with a clear 12:20 win for the Bavarians. Only Denis Demirov, Vasyl Mykhailov and past master and team leader Andrij Shyyka were able to win valuable points for KSV with their technical superiority, offering hopes for the return leg. The hosts from Kleinostheim in Bavaria were able to win all of the other bouts.
‘We could have done a lot better’, was the annoyed assessment of Köllerbach’s team official Thomas Geid after the unexpectedly comprehensive away defeat. But giving up is not an option for the Saarland athletes, who are counting on a defiant response from the team and the energetic support of a home audience for the return leg next Saturday (13 January, 7:30 p.m.) at Trimmtreff Püttlingen, where they will be fighting to win a place in the German championship final.
SV Elversberg begins winter preparations
2 January 2024 saw SV Elversberg begin their preparations for the second half of the 2. Fußball-Bundesliga season. After a short break for Christmas and new year, the team under coach Horst Steffen have now been at the training ground in St. Ingbert for the past week training for the remainder of the season. SVE will be at a training camp in Mijas, Spain (near Malaga) from Monday 8 to 15 January. During this, the Elversberg players will play test games on Wednesday (10 January) against Spanish third-league team Antequera CF and on Saturday (13 January) against 17-time Austrian champions Red Bull Salzburg.
To kick off the second half of the season, on Saturday (20 January at 1 p.m.) SV Elversberg will be welcoming Hannover 96 to the URSAPHARM Arena on Kaiserlinde.
We are looking forward to upcoming appearances from our #hyloathletes and wish all of our HYLO® partners much luck and success.