From 10 to 12 July 2026, the European Kubb Championships were played on the grass in Linz, Austria. Italy arrived with the largest delegation it has ever sent to an international competition: twenty-four players, spread across the different formats.
And it came home with its first ever European title. In the 3vs3 Freshman tournament, the Verona team “I Bifolchi” — Flavio Rizzi, Nicola Rizzi, Gabriele Cacciatori and Alessio Zardini — finished first out of sixty-six teams without losing a single match.
- players in the delegation
- 24
- players in the delegation
- out of 66 teams in the 3vs3 Freshman
- 1st
- out of 66 teams in the 3vs3 Freshman
- Nicola Rizzi among Europe’s best in the singles
- 32
- Nicola Rizzi among Europe’s best in the singles
- Gabriele Cacciatori’s age
- 77
- Gabriele Cacciatori’s age
Freshman is the category for teams playing their first European Championships. It isn’t the overall European title, and it’s only fair to say so plainly. But sixty-six teams are still sixty-six teams, and no Italian side had ever gone all the way unbeaten.
In the 1vs1, Italy’s best-ever finish came from twenty-year-old Nicola Rizzi. He got through the group stage, made the knockout rounds and finished in Europe’s top thirty-two. Leonardo Bartoli finished sixty-third.
The “Kraken” — Giacomo Bartoli, Leonardo Bartoli and Massimiliano Stellini — also played in the 3vs3 and finished fourteenth. And for the first time, Italy fielded a national team in the 6vs6: Nicola Rizzi, Leonardo Bartoli, Flavio Rizzi, Fabio Saggin, Massimiliano Stellini and Michele Ardengo.
One of the champion Bifolchi is Gabriele Cacciatori, who played these European Championships at the age of seventy-seven. That says more about Kubb than any ranking could: a pitch where aim and a cool head count for more than age, and where a twenty-year-old and a seventy-seven-year-old play in the same team and win together.
A pitch where aim and a cool head count for more than age, and where a twenty-year-old and a seventy-seven-year-old play in the same team and win together.
It took three years. In 2024 came Italy’s first European Championships, in the Czech Republic, where the main aim was to see how the game is played in countries that have been at it for thirty years. In 2025, Italy officially joined the European Kubb Association, alongside the continent’s leading federations, and made the trip to France. In 2026, Linz.
The next one is on home soil. For the first time, the European Kubb Championships have been awarded to Italy: the 2027 edition will be held at the via Tofane sports grounds in San Pietro in Cariano, in Valpolicella. Teams, players and the people travelling with them will gather from all over Europe, a few kilometres from the pitches where this story began.
There’s a year to learn the game, and you don’t have to be an expert when you get there. At the association’s events you can have a go with instructors, and the rules take ten minutes to learn. Training sessions are held at the Centro Sportivo First in Pescantina.
Results source: L'Arena, 14 July 2026.
