Get ready for Deauville!

After the 7 rounds of thrilling qualifiers, the first semi-final of the Longines EEF Series is upon us with the Northern and Western Regions coming together to battle it out in Deauville, for one five spaces at the Final in Warsaw, Poland, in September.

Ten talented and competitive nations come together– five from each Regional group – to complete on Friday.

Qualifying top of the North group is Poland. A team surely determined to perform at their absolute best to secure a place in front of a home crowd at the Finals later this year. Following them are a strong Danish contingent and an equally ambitious Swedish team who will be vying for their places in Warsaw, along with the dark horse of the group, Lithuania. Last but by no means least, the Finnish team will be looking to improve on their qualifying performances and push themselves up the leaderboard on Friday.

The hotly contested West Region were led by France, opting for young teams that have performed consistently throughout the entire Longines EEF Series, with two wins in the series – the opening leg in Gorla Minore (Italy) and their qualifying leg in Peelbergen (Netherlands). France heads to Deauville as the hot favourites this weekend, competing on home turf obviously giving them a favourable crowd, but sitting just behind them is Spain, a nation who always manage to pull a top performance out of the bag when needed, followed by stalwarts Belgium who have contested 4 out of the 7 qualifying legs of the Series.

Following behind is Portugal and fresh from success in last week's leg in Bratislava (Slovakia), Ireland will surely set a challenge to the 9 other nations.

Longines EEF Series Deauville

Friday 23 June: Round 1 expected at approx. 13.00 cest

Results and startlists at Longines Timing

Live stream: Clipmyhorse.tv