Following last year, the British Gateball Open Tournament 2016 was held at the beautiful three grass courts in the site of the Ripon Spa Hotel in Ripon City of North Yorkshire for three days from August 23 to 25, 2016.
The courts used for this tournament are usually used for croquet games.

About 30 players of six teams from Japan, Switzerland, and the UK participated in this tournament. The players were mainly in their 40s to 70s but the UK teams had three teenagers.

The first day was a practice day.  Players were checking and confirming the tactics, techniques, and rules.  Surprisingly, some Japanese players were communicating successfully with Swiss and the British players in a non-verbal style to explain about the rules and tactics!

On the second day, one team played five games in a round-robin fashion and the game results determined the opponent of the following day.
On the third day, the games were played at two courts. Each court had three teams, one with the first to the third teams and the other with the fourth to the sixth teams according to the ranking of the previous day. The game results of the league games in each court determined the finalists and teams to play in the third place matches.

Following the rule that a team which wins two matches out of three is the winner, the Japan B (Tokyo Smile) fought against the UK Spartans in the final matches. The Japan B (Tokyo Smile) won the first game and the second game was a tie with the same details of the points. Thus players of both teams lined up in order and compete in successfully passing through the first gate. Yet, the first round did not determine the winner as the number of successful players in passing through the gate was the same. Then the second round adopted the sudden-death system. The first Japanese player was successful but unfortunately the second British player was not.  Accordingly, the Japan B (Tokyo Smile) became the winner and the UK Spartans was the second. After the finals, the award giving ceremony was held, followed by the farewell party.

Both British and Swiss players drastically improved their skills and techniques comparing to their performances last year. They played equally against Japanese players who have decades of gateball experiences.
Again this year, whenever one game finished, we enjoyed 15 minute teatime in the hotel lounge, during which players had a good conversation with each other in an amiable atmosphere.
The British Gateball Open Tournament 2017 is already planned.  Perhaps by that time, some British players may visit Japan and participate in a gateball competition. Such mutual visits between the UK and Japan are expected to continue in the future.