Dick Jaspers Wins the Jumbo Duke Challenge in a Memorable Final Against Marco Zanetti

The UMB organization was in the well-known hands of the BEN organization team with JUMBO as the main event sponsor, under the auspices of the European Billiard Confederation (CEB) and the Royal Dutch Billiard Federation (KNBB).

BEN and JUMBO are familiar to UMB as organizer and main sponsor of the VEGHEL World Cup in the Netherlands.

JUMBO is the second major Dutch Supermarket Chain with a great history of prominent sport sponsoring and commercial sport marketing.

We find JUMBO as one of the main sponsors of International cycling (ICU), Ice Skating (ISU) and Formula One car racing, among many other sports, like 3-Cushion Billiards.

The Duke Challenge is a most welcome international event in these difficult COVID-19 times. Thanks to JUMBO, CEB, KNBB, BEN and the local sports authorities, this event could take place under strict safety measures, in a tested bubble, at the Golf Court Duke Hotel, without audience.

The matches were broadcast LIVE during the past three days by one of the major TV sports Channels in the Netherlands, ZIGGO SPORT, with the production of professional broadcasting images by KOZOOM.COM.

The playing format, knock-out, best of five10-points-sets, the shot-clock set at 30 seconds and the sportive player’s outfit, make this event exceptionally attractive for LIVE broadcasting.

UMB encourages its Confederations and Federations where and when possible, for organizing similar prominent 3-Cushion International events, with the local and confederal top athletes, as the Covid-19 situation permits.

From our side, we congratulate the CEB, the KNBB, the BEN and the JUMBO organizations for this magnificent initiative and the subsequent promotion for our sport that was LIVE presented at the highest level.

We sincerely hope that we will soon recover from the current pandemic restrictions and restart our International sportive calendar as the restrictions are successively lift off.

We wish you all to stay healthy and keep our sport at the attention of the great UMB 3-Cushion community.