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 ^^.