Emil Sutovsky of Israel is the 2001 European Champion

In the medal playoffs, Azmaiparashvili won vs Polgar and Sutovsky won vs Ponomariov to become the new European Champion. They are automatically in the 2001 FIDE world championships. The highest-scoring players below them played off for the remaining World Championship slots. There were a few suprises in these crucial games for the final spots. Bulgarians took two of the final four spots in the FIDE championship. Georgiev, who recently won the Sarajevo tournament, and Delchev. Georgiev eliminated last year’s European champion, Tregubov. Joel Lautier of France squeezed through after a difficult tournament by beating Turkey’s Suat Atalik. The final spot was between Holland’s Jeroen Piket and Hungary’s little-known Zoltan Gyimesi. In a major upset, the Hungarian won the match to qualify.