Archive image — © tim dirven
Belgium won silver in the country competition at the International Quizzing Championships in Torremolinos, Spain. The Belgian foursome had to lose out against the United States in the final. In the individual competition, world champion Ronny Swiggers had to settle for fifth place.
The International Quizzing Championships were only held for the first time, but are actually the successor to the Ultimate Quizzing Championships and the European Quizzing Championships. Sixteen countries took their chance on Friday evening during the preliminary rounds of the Nations Cup. Belgium managed to qualify second for the semi-finals, where they easily matched Norway. In the final, Nico Pattyn, Tom Trogh, Lander Frederickx and Ronny Swiggers were defeated 91-64 by the United States on Sunday afternoon. The Belgian quartet managed to win gold at the two previous international appointments.
In the individual competition, 148 quizzers from 23 countries took their chances. Defending champion Ronny Swiggers and Tom Trogh managed to qualify for the final, but ultimately ended up in fifth and sixth place respectively. The gold went to Dean Kotiga for the first time. The Croatian was four points ahead of the Englishman Daoud Jackson and the American Victoria Groce. In the category up to 30 years, Dries Van De Sande took the bronze medal.
The Belgian delegation also performed well in the theme quizzes. Nico Pattyn was crowned the best quizzer in the Geography theme, one point ahead of Paul Arts. In the Pop Music category there was bronze for Lander Frederickx. Finally, Tom Trogh and Tim Van der Heyden finished a good second place in the duo quiz.
