The fourth and final day of the Teqball World Championships at the Gliwice Arena in Poland culminated with three new champions being crowned.

After Friday’s clean sweep by Hungarian athletes in the singles competitions, the true geographical strength of teqball was on display, with two other countries and two continents represented among the gold medals.

• Men’s doubles champions 2021: Serbia (Bogdan Marojević and Nikola Mitro)
• Women’s doubles champions 2021: Brazil (Rafaella Fontes and Natalia Guitler)
• Mixed doubles champions 2021:Hungary (Csaba Bányik and Zsanett Janicsek)

In front of a near-capacity crowd (once Covid-induced restrictions were taken into account), the Arena was treated to a series of the very best matches the sport has to offer, as the teqers vied to call themselves world champions.

In the men’s doubles, Marojević and Mitro, seeded fifth, defeated Romania’s third seeds Apor Györgydeák and Szabolcs Ilyés 2:1 (12-7, 9-12, 12-3) in a match in which the Serbians always looked to have the edge, despite losing the second set.

The bronze match had been won 2:0 by Hungary’s top seeds Csaba Bányik and Ádám Blázsovics, meaning that Bányik would go home with two medals when he later won gold in the mixed doubles.

In the women’s doubles, joint seventh seeds Fontes and Guitler were 2:1 victors (12-3, 6-12, 12-9) over the US top seeds Carolyn Greco and Margaret Osmundson, in a win that was received rapturously by Brazilian fans who greeted every point won by the superstar Guitler with chants of ‘Na-tal-ia! Nat-al-ia!’

The bronze match was won by Romania’s fourth seeds Kinga Barabasi and Katalin Dako who triumphed 2:1 over the third-seeded Hungarian couple of Anna Izsak and Lea Vasas, with Izsak failing to add another medal to the singles gold she won on Friday.

In the mixed doubles, top seeds Bányik and Janicsek triumphed 2:0 (12-10, 12-9) over Brazil’s fifth seeds Leonardo Lindoso de Almeida and Vania Moreis da Cruz, preventing Brazil from claiming a second gold medal spot on the rostrum.

The Romanian pair of Apor Györgydeák and Tünde Miklós won 2:1 against USA’s Luka Pilic and Osmundson in the bronze match, after a pulsating contest in which the lead repeatedly changed hands.

For Györgydeák the victory was consolation for missing out in the bronze medal match in the men’s singles, for which he had been top seed.

More than 100 teqers from 32 countries took part in the World Championships, which were organised in just four weeks, a staggering achievement in the face of the restrictions imposed by the Covid pandemic.

The success of the event overall was highlighted by FITEQ chairman Viktor Huszár, who said that the championships “showed to the world the attitude of the Teqball federations: despite Covid, despite all the challenges, we decided it’s time for being brave. If you don’t do events, then what kind of sport do you have?”