First of all, our thanks to our sponsors, the Generali Group, one of the biggest insurance companies in the world, represented here tonight its Communications Director, Aldo Castellani. The generous support of the Generali Group means that we can gather together so many great bridge players for this special event. Collectivité Territoriale de Corse and our Corsican partners, the City of Ajaccio, France Telecom Corsica and Copie Conforme, as well as the President of the Comité de Corse, Mr Jean-Claude Guazzelli and the Cyrnos Club President Cecile Rocchiccioli And Paul Giacomoni, its manager, have also given us great support and we are very grateful.

I would also like to thank the French Bridge Federation and its President, Michel Marmouget, for his considerable help with the provision of the technology, equipment and staff. Our special thanks go, of course, to all the people who work at this event. To Claude Dadoun, the Chief Tournament Director and his assistant Jean-Louis Pennec; to Jean Claude Pourcelot for the scoring; to the Bridge Vision Team, Elizabeth Antelme, Anne Maury, Veronique Dupont with Bernard Delange, Paul Binisti from Zoomescope.

I am quite sure that the comments from Jean Paul Meyer, Barry Regal and Marcin Lezniewski were so good that the audience was very big.

Finally thank you Patrick Jourdain, Anna Gudge, Ernesto d'Orsi, Guy Dupont and Tony Gordon for your work on the Daily Bulletin, which has been put onto Internet everywhere. All the cards and bids have been transmitted onto the Bridgeplaza website by Koen Gijsman and Ono Eskes, and the Bulletins and Results, including a special Internet Bulletin have been put onto the WBF Web Site by Thanassis Matziaris.

A very final big thank you goes to Jean-Claude Beineix, the Vice President of the EBL and my assistant Christine Francin for their untiring work. Congratulations to you all, the players, for the perfect atmosphere which reigned in this Generali Masters. And, of course, congratulations to the winners and the medallists and to all the people "in the money". We all know that, as an event, this is a very special and difficult exercise, but there is no other tournament which succeeds in having both such a strong field and such a friendly atmosphere. I sincerely hope that you will all return home with the wish to speak in favour of our lovely Corsica and that you will come back soon to visit again this marvellous island.