The Vatman Tram-EM European Football Championship, held for the first time in Oradea, Romania, kicked off on Saturday morning, with 25 teams from major European cities participating.

The official opening took place at Piaţa Unirii, from 10:00, with the presentation of the teams consisting of two Whatmans and a supervisor, and a short video with trams and images from the represented city, with a welcome from the director of the public transport company from Oradea, OTL, Adrian Revnik .

The hosts from Oradea, who managed to reach the podium, third place, at the 2019 edition, have since offered to organize this high-level competition in the city on Krish, but the pandemic has postponed the event.

“The fact that we managed to bring this championship to Oradea is beneficial from many points of view. First of all, we are on the map of Europe for public transport. Then the world will be able to see how beautiful this city is and get to know our Romanian culture and traditions. All of Europe is also represented, from Ireland to Ukraine, from Sweden to Italy. We now have Europe at home and we are happy to host this great competition. Our goal is to get to know each other, with the big family of tram drivers,” director Adrian Revnik told Agerpres.

Piaţa Unirii was prepared as a small festival, with an open-air stage, brought in several food trucks, set up play areas for children, stands with information about public transport in Oradea.

The competition is held on Siemens and Astra trams

With music, cabaret moments and a good mood, the opening celebration marked the beginning of the competition, which took place throughout the day in the city center.

Each team will compete on two types of trams from the Oradea Park – Siemens and Astra – on a 130-meter stretch from Nezalezhnosti Street and Piaţa Unirii. Teams consist of whatman, whatman and a third person who will provide technical assistance. The only women’s team is Ukraine.

“The characteristics of the competition are the ability to adapt to a new vehicle, the reaction to unforeseen situations, the skill of the tram driver, so that he can perform various actions on time, in the shortest time, in order to prove his professionalism,” Revnik clarified.

Leonte Onica and Karoli Eva will fight for Oradea – after passing a very tough internal pre-selection.

25 cities participate in the competition: Barcelona, ​​Basel, Berlin, Bordeaux, Brussels, Debrecen, Dresden, Dublin, Florence, Gothenburg, Hanover, Kosice, Kyiv, Leipzig, Malaga, Nuremberg, Oslo, Oradea, Prague, Rotterdam, Stockholm, Szeged , Vienna, Warsaw and Zagreb.

According to the rules of the European Championship, Oradea entered the competition first, as the host, followed by the representative of last season’s winner, Hanover. The order for the remaining teams was determined by drawing lots.

Trials of the European Whatman Championship

In Tram-EM, the first test consists of “achieving and maintaining a speed of 25 km/h and braking at a fixed point”.

The second test promises to be attractive for the audience. The pool table will be carried along a section of the track, and the players will have to slowly drive up to the pool table, hit the big cue with the tram so that it takes turns to hit the cue ball and send it to the table area with different scores. The team gets points depending on where the ball lands.

The first two tests will take place with the Astra tram.

The third test will consist of quickly extinguishing a fire that started on a taxiway. The judge measures the time until the fire is extinguished.

After the lunch break, the teams will return to the competition, this time on the Siemens tram.

In the fourth challenge, the teams will have to place a dummy near the tram line, at the bend, so that it is as close as possible to the line, but not touching the passing tram. The faster he passes the dummy, the more points you get.

The contestants proceed to the fifth trial: they stop so that the third double door of the set reaches exactly the middle of the measuring field marked on the floor.

Finally, the sixth test will be unusual: the trams will have to hit a big ball; after touching the ball, the referee starts emergency braking, which, in turn, hits the six huge spikes located in Union Square. Time is of the essence, so the chandler will have to get out quickly and stop the measurement with the red buzzer.

Whatman European Championship (Tram-EM) reached its 10th edition. The OTL team from Oradea was the only one from Romania to participate in the European tram driver championships.

The awarding ceremony of the best Whatmans in Europe will take place at Piaţa Unirii from 4:00 p.m., and in the evening, from 9:00 p.m., contestants and residents of Oradea will be invited to a concert by singer Iryna Rimes. (Agerpress)