Fishing for glory in Germany
15 July 2005
While not exactly a household name at the moment, that could soon change for Hennie Papenfuss, South Africa's sole representative in the casting event at the 2005 World Games.
The World Games is a unique international event featuring non-Olympic sports. The 2005 Games, the seventh since the inception of the Games in 1981, is being held in the four German cities of Duisburg, Bottrop, Oberhausen and Mülheim from 14 to 24 July.
In spite of the fact that casting is not well known as a competitive sport, it counts among the world's most challenging throwing sports. It is a tournament event in which highly skilled athletes compete in fly-casting and plug-casting disciplines.
Made up of accuracy-based disciplines and distance-based disciplines, athletes use
rods which are very similar to angling rods, and the sport bears some resemblance to angling.
But neither bait nor fish are found anywhere in casting's objects, as the skilled athletes match up in the various disciplines based purely on accuracy or distance over dry ground, competing based purely on the mastery of their techniques.
At the World Games, casting sport participates with three disciplines, each with men's and women's divisions. To promote the essentials of tournament casting sport, the events are selected according to their popularity and to showcase casting's variety in the two disciplines.
The 2005 World Games casting event features Fly Accuracy, Fly Distance and Spinning Accuracy for both men and women.
SouthAfrica.info reporter
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