The World Freshwater Angling Championships is a freshwater angling competition. Participating countries fish in teams of five with titles awarded to the team with the fewest points, the competition area is split into sections and the winner with the most weight will be awarded one point, two for second, three for third, at the end of the two days the team with the least points is the top team. Since its inception in 1954, the competition has been staged on rivers, canals and still waters from a selected host nation. Currently (to 2021), the world championships have not been held outside of Europe.
Brief history
The inaugural world championship was held in West Germany in 1954 and won by team England, with the first individual title going to Gino Vigarani of Italy. In 1992, Dave Wesson, an Australian, became the only non-European to win the title. The 2020 World Freshwater Angling Championships was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic but resumed in 2021. The host nation have been team champions on 15 occasions, with the strongest nation at home being Italy who have won on their own waters 6 times, the others were Belgium 2, France, Luxembourg, Romania, East Germany, West Germany, England, Spain. The host nation has produced a home grown individual world champion from just 9 events of the 67 fished (one in seven).
Here are
all the World Freshwater Championship
winners since 1954.
The late 1980’s were successful years
for Wales, winning a gold, a silver a
bronze twice in the individual
competitions and the team gold once.
Below is a picture of me with the
English champ Bob Nudd, who was crowned
World no less than 4 times in the
1990’s.
Gold winning Brit’s are
Lane in 1963, Harris in 1969, Ian Heaps
in 1975, David Thomas in 1981, Kevin
Ashurst in 1982 (he had three silvers
over the following years, losing to
other Brit’s Bob Nudd and myself), David
Roper in 1985, myself in 1987 (after the
silver in 1986), Tom Pickering in 1989,
Bob Nudd who dominated in the early
1990’s, and in recent years Alan
Scotthorne, who won the title in
1996,97,98 and 2003, equalling the
record of four championships that Bob
Nudd achieved the year after Scotthorne
won those three in a row!
Coming close with Silver
are Stephan (for Scotland in 1984),
Ivan Marks, Steve Gardner and Will Raison (for England
in 1976, 1988 and 2000 respectively).
Only myself and Keven Ashurst of the
British champions also won silver
Bronze winners include
Burch and Sherwood (for England in 1965
and 1968 respectively), Davis (for Wales
in 1985), White (for England in 1987)
and Bainton (for Wales in 1989, helping
Wales win the Team Championship 1989).
The greatest foreign champion is the
Frenchman Tesse who between 1956 and
1965 won 3 golds, 2 silvers and a bronze
and is still ahead in overall wins.
It is now reconised that
Alan Scotthorn (England) is now the
most successful Angler of all time with
5 Gold individual medals under his belt.
Team competition Roll of
Honour : 
France 16, 
England 13, 
Italy 13, 
Belgium 7, 
Netherlands
3, 
Luxemburg 3, 
Germany 3, 
Spain 2, 
Hungary 2, 
Wales 1, 
Poland 1, 
Romania 1, 
Slovakia 1
Individual multiple
Champions : Alan
Scotthorne 5, Bob
Nudd 4, Tesse 3, Fougeat 2, Kremkus 2, Bassi 2, Tamas Walter
2
