Mr President Emeritus of the World Bridge Federation
Mrs President of the American Contract Bridge League
Mr President of the European Bridge League
Mrs President of the Central American & Carribean Bridge Federation
Ladies and Gentlemen

Thank you all very much for coming to Fort Lauderdale and sharing some of your time with the world's top young players. Your presence here indicates the great importance that the world of bridge attaches to the Juniors. You emit the right signal to all sides: those who support Junior bridge see that they are not alone in their struggle; those who do not, have the chance to realize that they are on the wrong course.

In particular, I wish to thank very much indeed a person who has played a very important role in my life as well as in the development of Junior bridge. I am referring to our highly respected President Emeritus Jaime Ortiz-Patiño whom we are fortunate to have with us tonight. As we all know, Jimmy is the godfather of the World Junior Team Championship and the donor of the prestigious Trophy that bears his name. Above all, he is the person who changed the face of bridge during the ten years he was President of the WBF. He has never stopped being a unique source of inspiration, guidance and support to many people in the world of bridge. I am very proud to be one of them, and wish to thank Jimmy very much indeed for everything he has done for us.

I am very happy to convey to all of you the best wishes of our President José Damiani, who unfortunately could not be with us this year as he has always been in the past. The President has been following the developments here very closely, and he has asked me to congratulate the winners and all the other teams that made this tournament so successful. Mr Damiani is an enthusiastic supporter of Junior bridge and we can be sure of his best attention at all times.

Bridge needs to be developed among young people for a variety of reasons. Each of these reasons is very important and by itself sufficient to justify the effort we are putting into junior bridge. As we all know, young people are the future, and the future is the hope for everything we do. Young people bring fresh ideas into the game and thus they contribute a lot to its technical development. They also contribute more than anybody else to its quantitative development. Young people offer bridge the right image - the image of a dynamic activity, the image of a mind sport, the image of modern technology. As bridge needs the youth, so the youth need bridge. We live at times when specialization in education is necessary.

However, this should by no means lead young people to a restricted educational environment. Bridge offers an excellent intellectual escape. It combines mathematical logic and technique with human characteristics which make it differ from most other pastimes. Bridge has no end. This is what makes it so interesting and attractive - and that is why some people accuse it of leading to addiction. Nothing describes life better than passion, and people lacking passion do not get the best of life.

Bridge can be a passion - but, unlike many other passions, it is a good one. Bridge brings people together, and makes them understand each other better. Thus, bridge is a social game as well as a mind sport.

All these positive characteristics of bridge have been finally recognized by the most genuine representative of the sports world: the Olympic movement. After years of intense efforts, bridge is at the doorstep of the Olympic Games. We have already got the status of recognition by the International Olympic Committee and look forward to participating in the 2002 Winter Olympic Games as a demonstration sport before assuming our permanent role in 2006.

Junior bridge in particular is expected to lead the way that will bring our mind sport to the rank it deserves, side by side with the physical sports. How much do we live up to expectation with the development of Junior bridge? The world was not made to be the same everywhere, so Junior bridge prospers in some areas while it is neglected elsewhere. This championship is the flagship of our program, and we are very glad that all geographical zones of the World Bridge Federation were represented. The level of play was a proof of how much Junior bridge has progressed in quality. As this is a tournament for the very top young players, no participation records are sought. However, this was not the case with the World Junior Pairs Championship which took place in the Czech Republic last month. There we were able to welcome nearly 400 Juniors for some 30 countries, in what was the largest Junior event ever held in the history of the game!

Despite these successes, there is a lot of work to be done in order to bring Junior bridge to acceptable levels worldwide. This is not an easy task for many local as well as national bridge organizations which have to face prejudice, other priorities or simply negligence on behalf of their governments. At the same time, the administrative structure of bridge allows the World Bridge Federation only an advisory role on local affairs. At international level, we are glad to be providing competitions for all Junior players, as well as social events like the Junior Camps. We hope that these activities may act as a source of motivation for local Junior bridge development, and inspiration for further expansion.

The 7th World Junior Bridge Championship will go on record as a very successful event. This is the result of a number of appropriate decisions, excellent cooperation of all parties involved during the preparatory stages, and exemplary attitude by the players during the tournament. Picking Florida as the Championship location we aimed at holding the event in the center of an area where it is very important to see Junior bridge developing at much faster rates than today. This is part of North America - the birthplace of contract bridge where so many glorious pages have been written in the book of bridge history. Yet, Junior bridge has not received the best attention in recent years, and this has had very negative consequences for the game.

Practically, we are also in Central America, and conveniently close to South America where so much bridge potential remains unexploited, thus hurting the progress of our game. It is imperative that every possible effort be made to change this situation and reverse the trend. We offer our cooperation and support, and hope that this event will mark the beginning of a new era in the desired direction.

The organization of this Championship was a joint effort of the American Contract Bridge League and the World Bridge Federation. The ACBL offered material, advise, human support and many helping hands. Above all, however, it offered the hearts of a number of very capable and dedicated people who were determined to make this tournament a success. That is why it was so.

I would therefore like to thank first and foremost the ACBL, its President Val Covalciuc and CEO David Silber. Very rarely have I seen such enthusiasm as that shown by the Chairman of the Organizing Committee. An experienced administrator with many organizational successes in her record, she embraced all of us like a mother would embrace her children before we even got here. She generated a lot of support for this tournament and gathered gifts and services that made our stay here nice and comfortable. Incredibly enough, once everything was ready here, she left to run another tournament as committed, but came back again to ensure that the conclusion of this championship would be as successful as the start. Thank you very much Jayne Thomas.

At the same time, I wish to express a word of thanks to the hospitable Radisson Bahia Mar Beach Resort, its General Manager Kevin Quirk, the Director of Sales Mike Garcia and the Banquet Manager Trish Miracola. They all stood by us at all times and ensured that all necessary facilities would be available to the Championship.

The Championship was fortunate to have a very capable team of Tournament Directors: Chief Gary Blaiss, Assistant Chief Antonio Riccardi and Directors Rick Beye and Guillermo Poplawsky. The organizational support offered by Jeff Johnston was of a very high standard indeed.

We should thank the Scorer Pow Wooldridge and the impeccable duplication team of Murry and Natalie Hayes. The Vugraph show was at the heart of the Championship, and it functioned very well thanks to Kent and Chyah Burghard on one hand, and the Commentators Barry Rigal and Eric Kokish on the other. Of course, we should not forget the contribution of one of the world's greatest bridge personalities, Bobby Wolff.

The Daily Bulletin covered every aspect of the tournament and will remain on our shelf to remind us of all details even after many years. Thank you very much for an excellent job Henry Francis, Dorthy Francis and Stelios Hadjidakis. With the advent of technology, whatever happens here is known all over the world in a matter of minutes, thanks to the Internet and our Internet Editor Thanassis Matziaris.

To share success but be solely responsible for failures is not an advantageous role, but I am glad that this has been performed so well by my capable friend Dimitri Ballas, our Operations Director. It is very hard to describe - and even if I try, I shall not do justice - to the tremendous effort put forward since the very beginning and for many months by Charlotte Blaiss for the success of this Championship. We just cannot thank her enough! Many thanks are also due to Harley Bress who assisted in the tournament preparations. A tournament is not run only by the department heads. Behind them, there are many nameless heroes - sometimes called volunteers, some other times Felicity Reid - who run after whatever is needed. We thank them all very much!

Finally, let me share with you my gratitude for two dear friends and colleagues on the World Bridge Federation for many years, who have always been available to help in whatever field. Words are hard to express my gratitude to Joan Gerard and Barbara Nudelman; I shall just say that I am very lucky that these two wonderful and most capable Ladies consider me their friend. Now that we have paid tribute to all people who have worked for the success of the Championship on this side of the bench, it is necessary to move to the other side. It is clear that no matter what effort the organizers have put forward, a tournament will never succeed without the cooperation of you the players. Once again, I am very glad to see that you have lived up to our expectation and played your part with excellence as you and your predecessors have done so many times. Congratulations! When we see you being such wonderful people, we all feel that the effort was worthwhile. Thank you all for the pleasure of spending a wonderful week or so together, and thank you for helping bridge with your attitude, high ethics and sportsmanship. We all love you and our sadness for going away tomorrow is only comforted by the hope that we shall soon meet again in one of our future events.

Be well and happy, have a safe journey back home and let's make sure that we stay in touch through the Internet.

Panos Gerontopoulos