PRESIDENT'S CLOSING SPEECH

Paris, France - 3rd November 2001

We made it!
We, that is to say, you and us, yes we made it.

A success from the point of view of participation, as everybody was here finally, even our Pakistani friend, Zia, as well as the Indonesians (who qualified in the quarter-finals) and the Americans who achieved extraordinary results getting a gold medal in the Bermuda Bowl, the Seniors Bowl and the Transnationals and a bronze in the Venice Cup, with a special mention for Rose Meltzer, the only woman ever to have been on a winning Bermuda Bowl team, who is also celebrating her birthday today. We also had an unexpectedly high number of transnational teams. A success in terms of the crowd of spectators in the Bridge Vision with Jean-Paul Meyer who coordinated the commentaries from Eric Kokish, Barry Rigal, Philippe Cronier, Michel Bessis and Pierre-Yves Guillaumin, with Elisatheth Antelme, Elisabeth Piganeau, Patrice Piganeau, Odile Beineix behind the scenes, and Bernard Delange, Paul Binisti and Bernadette Pasquier doing the video - the room had to be enlarged twice to accommodate about 10.000 people over the two weeks - with Marc Hodler, the IOC Vice President, as a famous kibitzer. A success with respect to the media coverage with many TV, radio and press reports. Thanks to Mark Horton, Brent Manley, Brian Senior, Stelio Hadjidakis, Ron Tacchi, Guy Dupont, George Georgopoulos for the Bulletin and our press people Elly Ducheyne, Agnes Fabre and Helene Vivier. Mercure Création as well as E-Bridge broadcast the final stages through Internet.

José Damiani, President of the World Bridge Federation

My sincere thanks go to all of you, the workers, in all the different fields:
Anna-Maria Torlontano, Monique Callon, Denise Gabriel and Micheline Merot in hospitality, Ton Kooijman, François Evrard and Patrick Flodrops in charge of Operations and particularly Mark Newton, assisted by Vincent Lamaire, without whose expertise we would not have had the Press and Bulletin rooms. And, of course, not forgetting Chris Diment on the systems desk, Jan and Corrie Louwerse on the Line-ups, Claude Dadoun and Harvey Fox on the scoring and results, Annie Chekroun, Anna-Maria Orlandi, Nadia Protogène and Brigitte Piquet on the Duplication, and Pascal Ferrandini who was responsible for the transport with Jean Paul Noel.

We have tried to do our job, which is to organize our world events for the love of our sport and the pleasure of the players.
We sincerely hope that we will defeat terrorism in order to meet again in future in a more "relaxed" atmosphere.
However, the fighting spirit was very much in evidence here, as was the fair play.
Even though the competition was rigorous, it is amazing to highlight the fact that we held only three appeals, which shows that our new policy promulgated in Lausanne is working, helped by our formidable team of Tournament Directors under the leadership of Bill (Kojak) Schoder, Max Bavin, Bertrand Gignoux, Richard Grenside, Jean-Louis Pennec, Guillermo Poplawski and Antonio Riccardi.

As you can see, these people come from all over the world though here, of course, the French Bridge Federation, its President Bernard Liochon, its management committee and Jean-Claude Beineix its CEO, all played a special role.

During the whole fortnight, I have been very touched by the expressions of sympathy, congratulations and gratitude that you have been so kind to give me.
Thank you. Thank you very much for your appreciation that I have shared with my colleagues on the WBF Executive Council.

Next year, we are going to organize the 4th edition of the IOC Grand Prix as an attraction in Salt Lake City prior to the opening of the Winter Olympic Games, from 2nd to 6th February.

We are pinning a lot of hopes on this presentation to the Executive Commission of the IOC. They will certainly decide our future. Again, if we have been working so hard in this direction, it is because we believe that it will considerably help the national federations and, moreover, you the champions in your image and living.

Later, in August, we will hold the next World Championships in Montreal, Canada.
I invite all of you to come. Montreal is the perfect transition between two worlds - American and Europe - with friendly people who will welcome you very warmly.

Let me now extend my congratulations to all of you and especially to the medallists in all the events, Seniors Bowl, Transnationals, Venice Cup and Bermuda Bowl.

We said from the beginning that these Championships are dedicated to the victims of terrorism. I would add today that they are also dedicated to the victims of the war all over the world. For this reason, we will not use the national flags as they would have to be flown at half-mast, nor will we play the anthems.
These Championships were organized for you and we will now proceed with the presentation of medals that some of you have so very richly deserved. To show that our family is united, we will make the presentations under the WBF flag and our motto "Bridge for Peace".