The Billiards World Cup Association (BWA) was a
governing body
A governing body is a group of people that has the authority to exercise governance over an organization or political entity. The most formal is a government, a body whose sole responsibility and authority is to make binding decisions in a taken ...
for
three-cushion carom billiards
Carom billiards, sometimes called carambole billiards, is the overarching title of a family of cue sports generally played on cloth-covered, billiard tables. In its simplest form, the object of the game is to score or "counts" by ' one's o ...
which organized and marketed the
Three-Cushion World Cup from 1985 to 1999. It was subordinate to the World Association
Union Mondiale de Billard
The Union Mondiale de Billard (French for World Union of Billiards) is the world governing body for carom (carambole) billiard games.
History
The organization was founded in Madrid, Spain on 1 June 1959, and is dedicated to promoting the mo ...
(UMB).
History
The idea
In 1985, the "BC 1921 Elversberg", a German carom billiards club, ordered four new carambolage tables from the Belgian company ''Deque'' They expected to be able to negotiate the price a few percent down, however ''Deque'' did not agree, but instead, made the suggestion that their official representative,
Raymond Ceulemans could hold a demonstration at the inauguration. The club did not hesitate and accepted the offer, since it was rather uncommon to get the then 32-time world champion in three-cushion as a private entertainer.
The show was held on 18 December 1985. For the first time, the club had specially built grandstands. The stands were full as Ceulemans and Klaus Bosel played. After the expected win of Ceulemans’ by more than 50 points, he entertained the crowd with some artistic trick shots before dinner.
Since it was getting late and restaurants were no longer open, Bosel, Ceulemans, and Werner Bayer (former billiards club president) decided to go to Bosel's home, where Bosel's wife cooked for the guests. Midnight was approaching, it was Bosel's birthday and a bottle of champagne was opened, as the three sat together and talked about the future of three band billiards. Ceulemans said, much to the Bayer's amazement, that he still needed to work " properly " to make ends meet. Thus the idea was born to professionalize and market three-cushion billiards.
Founding
On 29 December 1985, the inaugural meeting was held at the hotel "Goldener Kopf" (engl.: "Golden Head") in
Bad Säckingen
Bad Säckingen ( High Alemannic: ''Bad Säckinge'') is a rural town in the administrative district of Waldshut in the state of Baden-Württemberg in Germany. It is famous as the "Trumpeteer's City" because of the book ''Der Trompeter von Säckin ...
near the German Swiss border. Fifteen people came to the establishing assembly. They decided that the seat of the BWA would be
Geneva
, neighboring_municipalities= Carouge, Chêne-Bougeries, Cologny, Lancy, Grand-Saconnex, Pregny-Chambésy, Vernier, Veyrier
, website = https://www.geneve.ch/
Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevr ...
in order to be close to the UMB and the
IOC
The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...
Supporters included, among others, Georg Peltzer, senior director and descendant of
Henry Simon Simonis, founder of Simonis
Billiard cloth factory in 1680,
and
Reinhold Würth
Reinhold Würth (born 20 April 1935) is a German billionaire businessman and art collector. In 1954, at the age of 19, he took over his father's tiny wholesale screw business and built it into the Würth Group, which posted €14.4 billion (US$ ...
, senior partner of the
Würth Group.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:BilliardsWorldcupAssociation
Carom billiards organizations
Sports organizations established in 1985
Organizations disestablished in 1999
Defunct sports governing bodies