poland wins world schools championship
as europe collects all medals

Winners: POLAND		Runners up: ISRAEL		Third place: NORWAY

Winning the inaugural World Schools Team Championship, POLAND became the first world title holder in this important category. The winners were followed by European Schools Team Champion ISRAEL, while third place went to NORWAY.

There were six teams taking part in the competition, which attracted representative squads from Europe and North America only. The other teams were two from the United States and one from Canada.

The World Schools Championship is to become a separate series within the frame of the World Youth Team Championship, which, for the time being, comprises only a Junior series.

ridge takes care of its younger players by providing special competitions and services for people up to 25 years of age - the Juniors. The objective is to have a suitable environment for our youngsters to compete and socialize under the umbrella of bridge.

As Junior bridge progresses, the necessity of splitting our young players in appropriate age groups becomes more and more apparent. Indeed, age difference between players is nowhere as important as among our youngsters. Obviously, what has prevented such a change so far was the lack of players adequate to populate a younger players’ series.

The WBF Youth Committee believes that the time has come to introduce at world level a series for players up to 20 years old. Following the terminology adopted a decade ago in Europe, we call this series Schools - not to imply that non-pupils should be barred, but to help many NBOs to seek support for this programme from educational institutions.

We wish to thank the American Contract Bridge League, our hosts, for their great contribution to this effort, and glad that the inaugural event proved so promising.