CANEGRATE, ITALY - The first phase of the World Championships will finally be under way Saturday morning. From the 11th of August the competition courses at Relax Time in Canegrate, Italy will start to welcome the arrival of minigolf athletes and fans from all corners of the world to participate in the Minigolf World Championships, which for the first time in its history will be played out in Italy. The National teams will have the possibility to play till their hearts content on the official course until the 16th of August, where they will study the angles and precision of their strokes and decide on which balls are best adapted to each pitch in order to make an "ace", or hole in one to those not in the minigolf loop. Two different courses will be used for the tournament, that of minigolf and that of miniature, which was laid down in Canegrate solely for this international competition.
From the 16th to the 22nd of August the official training will be under way: the participants will be divided into two groups which will alternate training between the morning and afternoon. The main event will take place from the 22nd to the 25th , the much anticipated World Championships will prove who is the world's best minigolf player.
In all, 22 Nations will be participating in the 2007 edition of the World Championships all of which will be trickling into Italy from Saturday and onwards. The first teams scheduled to arrive are Austria, Canada and the United States and will be joined by Switzerland and Hungary on Sunday, Sweden and France on Monday, Tuesday brings Germany and Russia and Wednesday sees the arrival of Portugal and Holland. After of which the arrival of the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Great Britain, Japan, Slovenia, Belgium, Latvia, Slovakia and Taiwan to bring the total number of participants to over 200, not counting the spectators. Also attending will be board members from the World Minigolf Federation (WMF), the Italian Minigolf Federation and special guests from countries such as Cameroon, China and Turkey.
The organization and communication of the world event has been entrusted to the communications agency Eo Ipso of Legnano (Milan).