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First Balloon World Cup takes place in Spain

This is the first ever Balloon World Cup

Location: Tarragona, Spain

The rules are simple:

Players have to hit the balloon in an upward direction

and they score points if their opponent fails

to prevent it from touching the ground

(SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) STREAMER, COMMENTATOR AND BALLOON WORLD CUP ORGANISER, IBAI LLANOS, SAYING:"I didn't expect this many people to take part. The last couple of days I was starting to feel like lots of people would join. I think that a few million people watched during the six hours of streaming. I think we reached a peak of 650,000 people watching at the same time. I think it's the second most viewed stream of my whole life so we are very happy to have done it with a Balloon World Cup, which is something that in principle should never have happened but at the end it did."

Teams from 32 countries took part

Francesco De La Cruz of Peru emerged as the first champion

after beating German Jan Spiess in the final

on a court littered with living room furniture and a small car

SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) BALLOON WORLD CUP CHAMPION FRANCESCO DE LA CRUZ SAYING:"The truth is I still can't believe it. I can't believe it." REPORTER ASKING: "Did you expect to achieve this in such a tight and spectacular final?" DE LA CRUZ SAYING: "I didn't expect it. I knew Germany was going to be a tough opponent but in the end it was a very good result."