Whever they could, the UT2004 grabbed our GGL stand PC's (as they had no net on their PC's). Here we have Evenflow (white shirt) checking out his pr0n stash, with winz looking on and DevilMC, flanked by dVo.

I wasn't sure what Michelle (DevilMC) was doing here, but it looks like hes trying to give someone the bird, but at the same time chew his finger nails. These Italians are resourceful people!

Falcon grabbed 2nd place in the UT2004 tournament and kindly posed for pics with his winning cheque, with me.

Thanks to the Rogue for the picture taking skills.

Lauke didnt look too pleased up on the media stage giving interviews, but still, he was the one of the three medalist's that stayed on stage ofr interviews the longest.

Here in the centre of the picture he comes under scrutiny from the french press.

winz won the UT2004 and then posed for the pictures that would be published all round the world. With so many people taking pictures I was surprised and pleased when he noticed me and turned in my direction for this shot, awww what a nice guy.

We just couldnt get that GGL hat off him all week. Some even suggested he had used super glue to keep it from being taken off.

This picture was taken as cooller explained he had only practiced a map for 3 hours... cl0ck just gave him a look and replied "yer, well I only played it for one hour..."

Great stuff from both.

Yes, one pic of me in here as Zulg insisted in taking my Camera away as he fealt id been taking too many pics of everyone else, it was time to turn the tables on me!

I must say, I think my picture taking is better than his, even if he does own me in UT.

The legendary swede was trying hard to get a video interview with wheat.

Well, not that kind of dope! He was tired, bless him. It was a very long first day, so we grabbed Pizza and pasta and washed up the day in Wheats room with Carmac, myself, Toss and Zulg.

The pair spoke in broken English/Rushian which worked out nicely for the live interview going out over the net.

I must remember to get Jibo to mail my headphones back to me as he ran off with them after the event!

Some said the Press area was fantastic, others moaned like hell about lack of bandwidth and so on, personally I thought it was excellent, especially with the massive screen showing some schedules and doing the live draw (football World Cup stylee) on the main stage area.

The winners interviews also took place here.

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The main stage was an impressive feature with clever LED technology emplyed to display the team/player names and flags of origin, a neat touch.

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As you would expect of nVidia these days, they had a high quality stand showing off all of their latest gizmos and tricks, including projecting the images of their latest graphics engine technology onto the historic walls of the Louvre.

CS was always going to be one of the major attractions in Paris and the crowds swamped the player area, not leaving any space to even get a picture!

somewhere in the background near the fnac.com logo are the CS team players...

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Pro Evolution soccer really grabbed the imagination of the people coming into the event, with good crowds leaning over the player enclosure throughout the event.

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Well, not get it on, in that way! (I know what you thought)

Wheat and Toss getting their thang on the mic for Quake 3.

The GGL broadcas area got swamped throughout the event and for the Quake3 games this was our first real crowd on the first day. Wheat and Toss at the mic.

The two guys who were due up first on the small stage were Falcon and Evenflow, but unfortunately (or fortunately if your the players) the stage PC's just didnt want to let them play.

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CombatCarl should obviously be the other side of that fencing, but Hypno doesnt seem to want to tell him how he can get there.

l-r : Forseti, CombatCarl, Hypno.

rmzs and Varagh get the chat on, early in day one of the UT2004 tournament. Obviously Varagh was telling our newly named RAMZ that he sucked...

Hungary's finest UT2004 player decided he liked this t-shirt on one of the stands in Paris that he just had to have it... free.

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These three guys also got some morning practice on their machines as th0r issues his orders (green top) for the day!

l-r : Falcon, Varagh and RAMZ as he became known! (rmzs just see his head)

The Portuguese star (Hypno) gets in some early morning practice with Evenflow (New Zealand) doing the same in the UT2004 players area.

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Day 1 morning and finally we have the GGL stand as we want it, complete with "GGL Couch" for the interviews.

With a long night having been dispensed with, we looked forward to a long first day, so made sure we grabbed some breakfast.

l-r : Larry, Tosspot, Wheat.

4am and time to head to the hotel for a few hours sleep and finally our stand is starting to take shape.

The middle area being our casting site, with the 42" plasma's kindly provided by Medion for the local spectators who would fill our entire area on competition days.

The big sign of the ESWC circl was able to light up, but interefered with the image quality of the video, so we had to use it without lights on. A good job too really, as when it was lit up it blinded us!

This was the view from the side stands looking at the main PC's for the UT2004, Quake3 and WC3 players enclosure as they await the players that will leave their names on the competition records for the years to come.

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Not an unusual sight in the early hours of Wednesday morning... We stayed until well after 4am getting the stand ready and then came back at 7am to get cracking on the day 1 coverage.

From left to right : Tosspot, Larry (our star tech man), wheat and Carmac, with an ESWC admin and Fred (Chairman of the GGL) sitting down.

The bedroom wasn't massive, but it was functional for our needs. We spent about 6 or 7 hours here a day and most of that was sleeping. Only complaint I had was with the poor showers.

We stayed in the Opera Marte hotel, which was about 15 minutes walk to the main event and we shared this hotel with many of the people attending the event, except the players of course who were loving it up together 5 minutes away...

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A 30 minute Roissey bus ride from the airport gave me my first close up view of the incredible structures in Paris, this was the Music Academy of Paris.

I had not had the pleasure (!!?!) of using Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport before. It was, as they say locally, c'est magnifique, at least in scale anyway... but more about that later.

A wholesome selection of photographs taken by yours truelly at the recent Electronic Sports World Cup finals at the classic Louvre venue in Paris.

A mix of gaming related pictures as well as a few of the surrounding architecture, just to give a bit more of a flavour of the location for those who were not able to attend or haven't seen Paris.

I have also tried, where possible to add some photographs of the people that made this event so special, so sit back, pop a good music track on your player, grab a beer and waste half an hour looking over what made this event so special.

Phew, Sunday was a helluva a long day in Paris, yet it seems a world away as I sit here this evening back in the UK.

The CS finals went off without a hitch, and incredible domination from complexity in the final against SK.dk, I really had this one down as a close match, but coL simply ran away with it, even having a 15-2 lead at one point, before SK battled back to win a few more respectability points. Wheat and Toss did a great job of casting the final and whilst I was obviously itching to be involved in the cast, I was happy to see us doing a great job again.

With the game over at around 5pm local time, my press duties would run for a further hour or so, especially as my employer (GGL) sponsored both complexity and the womens ladies CS team. Both clans won their respective tourneys and obviously the sponsor wanted maximum exposure in the way of photographic and editorial coverage. Camera in hand I was lead through the back exits of the ESWC grand stage area to a place out front to take the aforementioned pics.

I want to say thanks to both the guys and the girls for their understanding during the shoot as they were patient and helpful and an excellent advert of how to please financial sponsors despite the fact that I am sure they just wanted to get the hell out of there as soon as possible.

After the piccies were processed and sent off, I helped tidy up the GGL stand area a little and rescued my stuff from the slightly over zealous organisers removing stuff for storage. Can't blame them really, they also just wanted to get out of there.

The one thing we did miss out of our schedule (and a personal thing for me) was the role reversal Ut2004 match between me and wheat with the UT guys casting. We simply ran out of time and the ESWC guys wanted to close the net down, so it became pointless in the end. We will reserve that battle for another time then :)

After we cleared up, it was back to the hotel for a freshen up and then for me and Carmac it was a 1 hour battle against time to get to the Stade de France for the U2 concert. I have to say thanks to wheat here for the tickets, the chance to not only go and see U2 live in such an amazing venue but to have VIP tickets with hospitality and back stage passes was simply mind blowing.

We arrived in a sweltering heat at around 8.55 with 20 minutes to kill before they arrived on stage. Suffice to say, we were both like kids in the candy store and once it got started we were both so deaf, we gave up trying to relay our emotions to each other. I did manage to call my wife and let her listen to about 10 seconds of sound though and then sent her a text simply saying "lol". She wasnt best pleased ^^

We got back into Paris central for around 1am and headed for the ESWC Players end of tourney party. I shot a bit of footage and took some further pics here, but all in all with the prices being very high (5 euros for a small beer), it was not greatly attended. I headed back to the hotel at 3.30am leaving Carmac chatting up some rather tasty girl he'd seemingly "pulled" (pics to follow). Must have been his charm as it certainly isn't his looks ffs. :p

No pics of U2 from me sadly as they confiscated my camera when we entered the stadium :/ same cant be said for the lucky pole accompanying me, who some how sneeked his in despite a rigourous frisk... no doubt bragging photos will appear when he gets home.

So, bed at 4am and then up at 6am to catch my flight home... several hours wandering around Charles de Gaule didnt help my lack of sleep and irritability either, sending me to the wrong terminal, then the wrong gate and then finally "forgetting" to get the right plane to the right gate... how in hell you "forget" the plane...never mind.

Flight was better than the outbound one and I arrived back safely in the UK after what has been a fabulous experience and a truely awesome tournament.

Pics to follow, just as soon as I catch up on my self-induced jet lag.

Edit : Added the girl that Carmac pulled...

Sunday here in Paris and I awake an hour later than previous days as we have a slower day today, schedule wise. Never the less, its still busy and we still promise to bring some incredible broadcasts today. The CS final being the main event of the ESWC today, but we also have the 3/4 playoff, some warcraft3 action and if we can possily make it happen (via overcoming the technical difficulties) we will bring some Pro Evo Soccer too.

On the home front though we have something a little different for you guys out there. The ESWC Role Reversal world cup finals in UT2004 and Q3. The idea is, we as the casters will go and play the games and the pro's of each game will come over to the main stand and cast it!. The fixtures are Carmac v Wheat in the Q3 challenge and myself versus Wheat in the UT2004 challenge.

We will have a plethora of star names such as Falcon, Evenflow, rmzs, Lauke, Astz and probably a few live flames from Varagh too in the UT2004 game. Carmac will also take the interviews on the GGL couch right after the game with me and wheat. Expect some major flaming from me and wheat as we agreed back in the hotel that we would not be friends during our games. The Q3 game will also have a host of star names covering it with czm, cooler (hopefully), clock, socrates et all jumping on the cast to cover the Carmac v Wheat game. I will then do the interviews on the GGL couch right after. Fun? you bet :)

To wrap day 4 up, as you have probably read elsewhere, cooler is the new World Cup champion afer defeating czm on the grand stage last night with a 2-1 map victory. It wasnt the greatest final, but the comeback on map 2 from czm was the highlight for me. Most seem to hate or dislike cooller, but wherever you stand on him, you have to say he brings huge charachter to the games he plays. Comments like "ztn is map where you need brain..." is going to go into legend...

Update later today and then an early flight out for me tomorrow morning means my wrap up and report of the whole tourney will be written when I get back home Monday evening.

#radioitg and #ggl and eswc.ggl.com and www.radioitg.com for updates on schedules. We have a post here too : http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=818425

So, until later when Wheat gets to kick my arse in 2k4, live across the globe to over 20,000 viewers, au revoir.




ReDeYe congratulating Falcon on 2nd Place UT2004.

Its Saturday afternoon here in Paris and a day of intense competition for the Quake 3 guys.

Fox and czm battled it out this morning, with predictably czm comign through, but he was run close on hub, probably for the first time this week.

This afternoon, the Q3 was on hold while the ladies fought out the final of the CSW World Cup final. Ladies.amd looked strong early on, but it was the Girls Got Game team that just got stronger and stronger as the game went on, eventually wrapping up the gold cup.

With the CSW done, it was back to Q3 and the 2nd semi final between socrates_ and cooler. We had a huge crowd for this highly anticipated match up. Just before the game, we asked the crowd if they were chearing for socrates and got a huge response, followed by the question "whos rooting for cooler". The crowd replied with "boooooo", obvious here who was the crowd favourite and who was the bad boy of Q3.

Map 1 was dominted by cooler, with socrates even ending with minus frag count and it was then on to hub again. Socrates was better here, much better and the crowds polite applause for cooler in map 1 turned into huge roars for every socrates frag. The game moved on in time though with cooler throwing socrates timing off on the red armour and eventually he took a decisive 5 frag lead as we entered the last 3 minutes. Socrates battled bravely to the last, but the russian just had that something extra to make the final.

The 3rd/4th place battle would be between socrates and fox then and perhaps a chance for the swede to at least gain something from a tournament he himself is dissapointed in his form at. By contrast socrates said he was pleased just to get this far and perhaps then he will play with few nerves in the 3/4 game this early evening.

There were a few issues with the sound on the video stream but we hope they are now sorted out, id rather you guys were listening to the people casting than me and larry in the tech area lol.

We have the Q3 final to look forward to this evening, probably a very late 21/22CET game and then of course the CS final tomorrow.

We also have a few other things going on here with emphasise more on fun than anything majorly serious. This included a 2v2 TDM UT2004 tourney this morning and this afternoon, of which I was invited to take place (partnering Hungarys Varagh). We got drawn against winz & th0r in round one and of course we crashed out lol. After 3 months of no UT2004 NW, I was a little rusty to say the least, but my skills were never going to match up to the guy who won the World Cup two days ago in any case. At least my aim hadnt deserted me though and I made plenty of shock/LG kills. Sadly it wasnt enough and we were rolled badly by the aAa guys who won both maps. I at least did have the satisfaction of finishing just 3 frags behind Varagh and had a better efficiency...

Tomorrow we also have something real fun. We have the ESWC Role reversal World Cup final, which will be between myself and wheat in UT2004. Yes, me and wheat will battle it out, while the casters for this game will be Evenflow, Hypno, Astz, Falcon and the rest of the guys from the UT2004 tournament this year. Shoudl be a great opportunity for them to have a go at us instead of the other way round. I can hear shouts of "wtf is that noob doing..." already from Lauke...

Day Three of the competition is well under way, with many casts already complete and some amazing casts to come.

We have however, had numerous issues to contend with today and whilst I really dont want to criticise the organisers here, I can't really help it much when the lack of any appreciation for the media people (us) and therefore ultimately the kind of coverage we want to provide to the general worldwide public, is so badly affected.

We found out just 10 minutes before the UT2004 final was due to begin that the grand stage area had no way of us being able to connect to the lan server they used for the two finalists (Falcon and Winz). After a very heated debate with the stage managers, we managed to get a delay of 15 minutes, which quickly turned into a delay of 30 minutes, whilst they had the ESWC Technicians try and work their "magic" and get us on the servers from our GGL Stand.

Finally, after nearly 45 minutes of delay, anger, frustration and negotiation (why the fuck we have to negotiate to cover a match at an event that we are the contracted media partner for, is just beyond my comprehension), we finally conceeded that it wasnt going to happen and we resigned ourseleves to not being able to cover the first major final at this world cup.

As a last ditch attempt to at least cover the event, wheat managed to get us on a UTV server, far from ideal (no control of camera etc) but at least we could cast. We went out on video and Audio in the end, all be it, at the complete whim of the UTV admin...

The game had already begun when we were finally able to join a UTV server with Winz already 4 or 5 frags up. He went on to claim map 1 on Rankin by an impressive 16-2.

We discussed what Ive just written above during the interval and then got stuck into map 2 (Ironic), or rather we would have liked to, but the UTV admin decided not to select a single player in the game and so for 2 minutes we sat there staring at the 100A area... :s

Finally someone woke up and changed view (just as I spammed that id be walking over to the grand stage with a shotgun in hand if they didnt change view soon...amazingly it changed right after...).

winz this time round though had a fight on his hands with Falcon playing a tottally different style to that which got him to the final in the first place. He attacked almost recklessly, but it paid off as he ran into a 3-1 lead. winz pegged him back after a few minutes of chess ensued and we were back tied at 3-3. Winz then started to assert himself more though and took the next 3 frags leading to a 7-3 lead overall. Once again Falcon showed his fighting spirit with 2 quick frags to give himself a chance with 60 seconds to go. Another frag followed for 7-6 and with 10 seconds to go, Falcon went on the hunt for the final kill to take it into OT. It wasnt to be for the friendly Austrian though as winz pulled off an astonishing LG headshot with just a few seconds remaining to claim his first ever major tournament.

So, whilst the coverage wasnt what we or the fans wanted, it was at least an exciting second map.

It leaves many many questions however, not only from us as a media partner, but also for the organisers to answer. Why couldnt UTV be used earlier in the competition? they told us it was due to technical issues and yet somehow the final has 4 UTV servers... how? The lack of attention on the IRC bots didnt help either and together with our restriction on internet bandwidth and the lack of any connection to the grand stage area also needs further investigation.

Our other games today have been a lot smoother with some excellent CS match ups, including an incredible 15:15 game between SK and IT (both of Denmark) and the usual high standard of Q3 skills on show from czm, cooler, clock and socrates.

We have jibu and czm to come this afternoon as well as the piossibility of cooler going home unless he can beat fox. Grubby is back in action in the WC3 tourney and more second round group games from the CS tourney to come to.

I've had a few good chats with people today, including an interesting chat with Falcon about that first map defeat in which he had some major sound issues and also with lauke who was obviously very upset at missing out on the final.

The great guys over at unrealnorth have also had covnersations with me today and between us I think weve uploaded somewhere in the region of 200 photographs of the event today. Thanks to Tewic and Forseti.

Also want to say that the guys at fnatic.com are also bringing amazing coverage of the event, great job guys.

As the afternoon draws to a close all that is left to say right now, is that Paris coffee rocks, snails arent all that nice and neither was the squid, but at least I havent come all the way to Paris and carried on eating burgers ^^.

There is a common theme for today it would seem. CHESS.

The games today in UT2004 have certainly been far more tactical than they have been explosive, but none the less exciting to cast and watch.

We've seen a number of differing styles today, but ultimately the defensive style of Falcon has won through to the UT2004 final after he beat the favourite Lauke, in 3 maps. An incredibly tactical battle on Ironic ensued between these two great players which ended 0-0 after normal time, Falcon taking the map in OT. The final map Lea proved to be more fragtastic (!!) and once again ended in stalemate at 6-6. Lauke got stuck behind a wooden upright though and Falcon cornered him with rockets giving him a surprise 7-6 win.

In the other semi final, Winz came back from one map down against DevilMC, to beat him over the 3 maps, winning the last map by 4 clear frags.

We interviewed both the winners on the "GGL Couch", once again at the mic was Carmac. The guys seemed almost surprised at being in the final, but I dont doubt we are set for a fabulous final tomorrow (11AMCET). As Falcon passed me going to the couch, he was physically shaking! If I thought I was nervous whilst casting his game, he was obviously near heart attack stage!

On the other side of things today, Ive also casted a couple of the CS group games with Tosspot which went down well with the event spectators, especially GG v GC with well over 100 people cramming into the GGL/iTG Media stage. The atmosphere here seems to build with every game, every hour and every day as each match starts to become more important.

After yesterdays fun, today was a little more serious, although no less enjoyable for me personally.

We have sorted out plenty of the challenges that faced us yesterday and despite not being able to cast as much UT as Id wanted to, I have to conceed that other games take a bigger precedence here at the ESWC.

I grabbed some food around an hour ago with Nico (from CB) and we sat an ate down here at the GGL stand together, for the first time in 3 days, I was able to relax a little and feed the ever thirsty quest for information back to IRC.

I hope that our communication with the communities has improved since E3, where we rightly were criticised for a lack of "community involvement" in terms of letting people know what was happening.

I know its not perfect, but we are getting there and if I was able (politically and legally) to explain some of the pain we have had to go through just to bring you the coverage we have, I am certain you guys would be much more sympathetic to our cause. Having said this, I'm just as much a fan as you guys are and I really do appreciate the frustration sometimes at not having everything 100%, but stick with it, it will come and things will get better and better every event that is attended. The organisers of the events do so much work its inredible but perhaps they dont always have a full appreciation of what the "community" wants in terms of information. They are starting to understand this though. As a media partner, we too have our faults, but we are also starting to understand what people want.

Stick with it guys and I hope in a small way this journal and the info I post on IRC is helping to make this a great event for you.

Just a quick update as I am due to cast the first matches of the second round of UT2004 this morning (in about 20 minutes time!).

Last night was a real blast after we left the Louvre and headed off to find something to eat, I will relate the whole tale perhaps another time, but suffice to say for now, it was mega funny, right from the "GGL Couch" fight between Carmac and Lauke, to the surreal moment sitting in Wheats bedroom with him, Zulg and Carmac and my wife ringing me... I passed her to Zulg and told him to tell her who he was and which movie he did... The laughter from Zulg told me that my wife had somehow recognised his and fooze' name, yet shes never ever seen the movie before! You know your an addict when your wife gets excited speaking to a nutty Swedish guy AND knows who he is.

Exciting day ahead of us today with lots of the second round of matches taking place, Im also hoping to get some cs casts done as well the usual dose of UT2004 and some Q3. We looked at both GT4 and PES4, but unfortunately its impossible to spec and cast from the position within the venue, so sadly looks as if we wont be able to give these games the coverage I'd hoped we would.

Im now on a new PC within the GGL/iTG area so should be able to get on IRC fairly soon in eswc.coverage and eswc.ut

Id also point out for those who dont want video but DO want audio, you can now get that from today onwards with the shoutcast up all day long uninterrupted, regardless of the video stream. So what are you waiting for? tune in, listen, play. www.radioitg.com

8:07CET Paris, we draw towards the end of a hectic first (broadcasting) day with Tosspot currently at the mic for some warcraft3.

I myself have just come away from chatting with czm and clock about the Q3 tourney and that was preceeded by casting the Astz v Lauke Group 3 game. It was a highly interesting match with Laukes map (Rough) being won by Astz and likewise, Astz's map being won by Lauke.

The decider was Rankin and despite taking an early 7-2 lead, Astz decided to back off and run a little too much. Lauke caught him and the game was tied 9-9 with 2 minutes to go, but crucially with Lauke having map control and being heavily stacked. Lauke made two further kills within 30 seconds and ended Astz's chances of going through to the second round group stage. The cast was thoroughly enjoyable and I hope you guys managed to view/listen in to the game. It was a real pleasure working with Carmac and EvenFlow as well, two great guys with loads of knowledge of the game.

Earlier in the day, Toss and wheat covered the Q3 battle between Jibo and Toxic, with Jibo winning through in 3 maps. We also had a star studded cast on the "GGL Couch" too, with Astz, Lauke and Jibo all being interviewed by Carmac.

Just as we wind up, we had the great news through from HQ that the Euro stream is now up for the video link and having looked at it just now, I have to say its phenomenally enhanced over the US link (for us euros), smooth and the sound is spot on.

So, now its off to plan tomorrows action with wheat and Carmac and perhaps try and find somewhere to eat for the first time since I arrived in Paris...yes im bloody hungry, very tired, but thrilled at being here and doing the job I love so much, so my stomach pains and feet aching are merely minor issues right now compared to how I feel ^^.

Im sorry to those in IRC for a lack of updates, but IRC has been hugely unpredictable for us here in the media area as well as from our main desk. We also need to maximise what limited bandwidth we have at the main casting area and therefore we dont dare use anything net related whilst casting (which weve done for around 9 or so hours today). I will attempts to get another PC dedicated to IRC/ESR/GGL updates tomorrow.

Finally a couple of stories (as they always seem to crop up at these events) that made me chuckles or at least raise a smile. The first involves me going very red in the face! imagine that! redeye speechless!, yep thats right it happened. A random spectator tapped me on the shoulder and asked if he could have his picture taken with me... (My initial shock lead to me believing this guy thought I was someone else...), thankfully he spared me further embarrasment by not asking for an autograph. BLIMEY! Shocked to say the least I was.

The Second story also involves a french person who shall remain nameless to protect his shame... he asked me where he would find DJ8. Initially I said I had no idea who this was, but then I thought maybe id mis-heard him so I asked him again and said "you mean dJWheat right"?", yes, he replied "I wasnt sure if you knew french...", err nor was I!, it turned out hed heard someone talking about dJwheat and wanted to find him, what he thought tho, was that he was called DJhuit, as in the number 8 in french...lol a fine way to end my first day here in Paris.

We have been given 24 hours worth of wireless access back at the hotel from this evening, so we will attempt to upload some/all the demos, casts, photographs and some special video footage that we werent able to broadcast today. We are of course recording everything we cover, so even if it doesnt go out live, you should be able to see it at some point this week.

signing off, a weary but very happy ReDeYe.

We are now well into the tournament starts after some initial teething problems, courtesy of the Paris traffic (lol). Some of the players waited on busses all over Paris on their way to the event this morning, some upto 3 hours... eventually though, they arrived safe and sound and the matches begun.

In UT2004 GGL/iTG ran the first video stream of the day in the opening match of Group A between Falcon and EvenFlow. A pretty even affair over both maps, with Falcon taking a narrow 4-3 win on Rankin, following up with a slightly healthier 4-1 win on Lea. EvenFlow however, played really well and made a concious decision to play Falcon differently. Gone were the usual rabid attacks without any care and in came the waiting game, cool, calculated and patient. In the end it didnt pay off for EvenFlow, but it certainly made Faclon work for the win and he was on the defensive for most of the second half of Rankin, defending a 2 frag lead. (Casters : Wheat and ReDeYe)

Here at the GGL/iTG stand we also had the first glimpse of CZM who played off against local favourite st.germain, czm running out 40-16 in the end despite a close and combative start from the frenchman. Toss and Wheat casted this one.

We now have a bit of a break before we resume this afternoon with jibo versus toxic (from group B of the Q3 tourney). We also have an exclusive interview on the GGL/iTG couch with jibo, interviewed by our "man with the pole" Mr.Carmac. This should be going out live in around 90 minutes time from now.

We understand from our early casts that the sound was a bit low. We will make sure this is fixed for this afternoon for sure.

I still cant get on IRC for any longer than a few minutes at a time and while we are casting its impossible. I will try and get you guys some more photos, news, updates and so on, just as soon as I can get back on IRC again.

Thanks to everyone supporting and tunign in so far, its really appreciated and I hope that our coverage just gets better and better as the week unfolds.

Yup, just 3 hours after we got back to the hotel at 4am this morning, we were back up and out of the door on our way back to the louvre.

This morning see's us in much better shape with internet (and god save me, IRC) working now. We still arent 100% sure what we have in the way of bandwidth just yet, but these guys helping us from Tech are really good, so we are pretty confident all will be well when start casting.

Not much more to report at the moment, except to say, wheat, toss, carmac and myself had a pretty hectic set of conversations over breakfast this morning about the day ahead and the state of pro gaming in general.

Now we have decent net access though, we should be able to bring updates on a regular basis.

Paris by morning looks simply incredible, a vast city with a real charachter, far far removed from the smog of London. Suffice to say I am enjoying being here already.

Well the flight was a bit of a nightmare, some problem with the plane initially meaning a delayed departure and some turbulence during the flight that not even Muse on the MP3 player could help me ignore. Then sat in traffic for an hour on the way from the airport. (The size of Charles de Gaulles airport is truely astonishing though).

Hotel was a nightmare to find too, at least with my complete disorientation when I arrived!

So moans over! or maybe not...

Arrived at the Louvre de Carrousel at about 10pm local time. Met up with the guys from iTG and Fred (GGL) and initially spent the first hour assembling our area with the help of the organisers here at the event, who I must say are working their arses off.

As a side note, we've also had some really constructive and friendly chats with the guys from VBCast.

Without wishing to worry anyone, it seems as if our internet may well be highly restricted which could affect both crews chances of putting on a great show for you guys back home.

Having said that, we are (Marcus and Fred) speaking with VBCast heads right now as I type this entry, trying to find a way of working together to get the best coverage out to everyone. Perhaps in the face of adversity, something great can be done, but as of now its purely discussions and I'm not at liberty to divulge any further info in any event :/

Suffice to say, we are working hard to make sure the coverage will be superb and to make our area look great. Its 1.15am and whilst wheat and fred get on with the negotiations, im gonna head on back to the iTG/GGL stand to help finish off the setup with Toss.

A long night still awaits us I fear...

p.s. Havent had time to take in much of the city as yet, what with arriving late etc, will attempt to upload some early pics taken here at the Louvre tomorrow.

p.p.s
UT2004 groups have been sorted out. Group A has Falcon, Hypno, Rmzs, Evenflow. Group 2 has DevilMC, Winz, Lotus and Varagh. Group C looks like the group of death however with Lauke, Astz, Rox and donnie in it! and finally in Group D is CombatCarl, Killu, Zeta and the spare spot vacated by Luxxiz not being here.

Bags are packed and i'm ready to go to Paris. Its 8am and I have 6 hours before I need to be at the airport for my flight to ESWC. I've still got a few things to get (toiletries and small things), but in the main im ready for what promises to be an exceptional World Cup.

Ive just checked my Hotel and its right next to the event, which is great, but its a 30km ride on the bus from the airport, which with my limited French, I am hoping to make without a hitch!

I'm due into Paris at 6pmCET and will head straight for the Hotel, where I am due to meet up with Tosspot. We then have a meeting with the ESWC technical team and dinner together with the iTG crew to discuss our plans.

Finally its on to the opening ceremony and perhaps an early chance to grab some initial thoughts from the competitors.

Im particularly looking forward to meeting up with Astz again as weve not seen each other for 7 or 8 months (WCG/ECTS 2004) as well as meeting some of the other guys ive spoken to only in IRC before, like DevilMC and Luxxiz.

Excited isnt the word right now!