The Promocion championships are often left by the wayside amidst the chatter which surrounds the top tier competitions, which is a shame. The battle for the second tier txapela involves the potential future Olaizolas and Irujos and is an excellent guide to the credentials of up and coming young players, quite apart from being championship equally as hard fought as its more trumpeted counterpart. This year’s Promocion Cuatro y Medio featured a round of elimination matches to decide the composition of a quarter final league. These games finished on Sunday and produced the following results:

OLAZABAL beat MERINO I 22-10 (Santo Domingo de la Calzada, 5/10/12)
UNTORIA beat IZA 22-13 (Vitoria-Gasteiz, 6/10/12)
JAUNARENA beat ONGAY 22-19 (Eibar, 7/10/12)
APEZETXEA beat ZABALETA 22-13 (Arbizu, 14/10/12)
GORKA beat EZKURDIA 22-20 (Arbizu, 14/10/12)

Gorka Esteban made the quarters after an impressive defeat of Ezkurdia

Thus Olazabal, Untoria, Jaunarena, Apezetxea and Gorka proceed to the league stage. Meeting them there will be Elezkano, Rico IV and Lemuno, who were granted automatic entry. The quarter final league is divided into two groups of four, with Elezkano, Rico IV, Apezetxea and Olazabal in Group A and Untoria, Gorka, Lemuno and Jaunarena in Group B. Each player will play each of the other three in their group, with the top two proceeding to the semi-finals, to be held on 11^th November. The final will be on 24^th November in Tolosa. The quarter final league matches begin on Friday, and the fixtures for the first rotation are:

Friday 19^th October, Balmaseda: ELEZKANO v RICO IV
Saturday 20^th October, Bilbao: LEMUNO v UNTORIA
Sunday 21^st October, Logrono: JAUNARENA v GORKA
Monday 22^nd October, Tolosa; OLAZABAL v APEZETXEA

(Photo: mine)