Italy is having quite a run. This afternoon they added the World Junior Team Championship to their list - their first victory in this event. They jumped into the lead early against USA 2 and never looked back in the 96-board match. The final tally: Italy 261, United States 2 186.

Congratulations to the new world champions - Bernardo Biondo and Riccardo Intonti and their teammates Mario d'Avossa and Andrea Mallardi, plus non-playing captain Giagio Rinaldi. Congratulations also to Furio and Stelio DiBello who contributed to the Italians' victory but who did not play a sufficient number of boards to qualify for the gold medals.

The runners-up also played very well - Eric Greco and Chris Willenken together with their teammates Tom Carmichael and Joel Wooldridge, plus Bob Rosen, their non-playing captain. This team also had a third pair who helped them reach the final - David Wiegand and Chris Carmichael, Tom's sister. However, they did not play often enough to qualify for silver medals.

The bronze medals go the Danes, the defending champions, who gave the vugraph fans the biggest thrill of the tournament by defeating Israel on the very last board in the battle for third place. Playing for Denmark were Gregers Bjarnarson, Anders Hagen, Kaspar Konow, Mik Kristensen, Morten Madsen and Mikkel Nohr. Their non-playing captain was Kirsten Moller.

Within the past year, Italian bridge players have won four major championships. It started with the Rosenblum Teams at the World Championships in Lille last year. Then the Italian Juniors were victorious in the European Juniors. The diBello brothers were the champs in the European Schools competition. And now Italy has added the World Junior Team Championship to its laurels.