Americans End Up 4th At World Championship

Spain Takes Gold

October 20, 2024

USAngling Communications

Team USA Bass finished just outside the medals podium at the 18th World Bass Championship, which concluded recently at Lake Bolsena in Italy. Spain captured the team gold medal, with Australia taking the silver and the host Italians securing the bronze in the 15-nation event.

Team USA, the three-time defending gold-medalists, ended up 4th.

The six-member American squad fished without captain Scott Martin, who returned home to Florida prior to the first day of competition to tend to a family matter. Martin was replaced by Nicholas Morril, who made the trip to serve as Jacob Wheeler's cameraman.

"We're absolutely disappointed – not medaling is a tough pill to swallow," said Wheeler, the No. 1 angler in the BassFan World Rankings for five years running who won his third MLF Bass Pro Tour Angler of the Year title this year. "We were dealt a tough hand and things were a little crazier and more hectic than normal, but that's just the way it is sometimes. You still want to perform to the highest level.
"Sometimes you need a wake-up call. There's no money involved in this thing, it's just pride, and this shows that the U.S. is not guaranteed to win. The previous two times I fished these, we won both of them, but we can't take winning for granted."

Wheeler and Morril were the top-finishing American pair, catching 54.76 pounds over three days to take the No. 8 spot in those standings. Joey Cifuentes and Fred Roumbanis were 13th (51.24) and Scott Canterbury and Dustin Connell were 16th (46.47).

"I underestimated the potential of the lake; I thought 18 pounds a day would be a pretty good bag, and it wasn't," Wheeler said. "There were several things we missed as a team. We figured we could stop catching them at a certain point and be okay, but we ended up needing more than we thought.

"With a couple more days (of practice), we probably could've figured out some more of the nuances. Four of our six guys had two 8-hour practice days and some of the teams had a lot more than that. It's a pretty decent-size body of water (28,000 acres) and you just have to try to figure things out as fast as you can."

Spain captured the team gold with 79 "penalties" (the combined placements in the daily standings of a country's three duos, with a lower total being better). Australia had 85.5 and Italy 89. The Americans were next with 115.

Germany was fifth with 137.5, followed by South Africa (164), Canada (215), Zimbabwe (218), Croatia (229), Romania (259), Portugal (266.5), Austria (284.5), Puerto Rico (292), Serbia (307.5) and Mexico (364.5).

Spain had two of the Top 6 pairings and all three of that country's boats were among the Top 12 in the final pairs rankings. Pedro Jose Garcia Heredia and Daniel Leal Ruiz, the bronze-medalists in pairs, led with way for the Spaniards with daily finishes of 11th, 2nd and 4th. The brother tandem of Eric and Ruben Corbella Salvia were 6th (7th, 7th and 11th), while Javier Guillen Cordoba and Juan Manuel Losa Ibanez, the top team in the field on the final day with a tournament-best 21.34-pound bag, were 12th overall after placements of 21st and 14th on the first two days.

Italy's Jimmy Ashlock and Luca Vittorio Della Ciana claimed their second straight pairs gold medal (they also took the top slot in 2023 at Lake Sabor in Portugal). Fishing on home waters, they turned in daily finishes of 3rd, 1st and 10th for a penalty total of 14.

Mitchell Cone and Mattew Langford of Australia took silver with finishes of 4th, 6th and tied for 5th (15.5 penalties). Garcia Heredia and Leal Ruiz compiled 17 penalties.