Worldwide focus on shanghai

The world, it seems, is coming to Shanghai. As the World Bridge Team Championships get underway today, the city is host to another world event – the Women’s World Cup of football.

At a press conference on Friday at the Shanghai Convention Center, the focus was bridge and the excitement over the return of the world championships to China. The only previous time the nation hosted a World Bridge Championship was in 1995 in Beijing.

Big-time bridge will be back in Beijing next year as one of the events in the World Mind Sports Games, along with Chess, Go, Draughts (Checkers) and Chinese Chess. The Shanghai championships are expected to help boost interest in the Beijing tournament.

Journalists packed a meeting room at the convention center to hear all about the 2007 tournament, which has drawn more than 1,200 players and staff from 50 different countries.

Xiao Min, vice president of the Chinese Contract Bridge Association, welcomed the organizers of the world championships, reflecting on the recent success of the Chinese women’s team (silver medals in the Venice Cup in 1997 and 2003) and conceding that the open team “has a long way to go.” China does have the reigning World Open Pairs champions – Zhong Fu and Jie Zhao. They will be playing for China SMEG in this year’s Bermuda Bowl.

SMEG – Shanghai Media & Entertainment Group – is one of several sponsors of the world championships, including the Generali Group, the Shanghai Sport Federation and the CCBA.

Fan Guang Sheng, CCBA general secretary, noted that interest in bridge has declined somewhat in recent years in China, in no small measure because of the impressive growth of China’s economy. More of its citizens now are engaged in earning money, leaving less time for entertainment activities such as bridge, he said.

Fan said, however, that he is hopeful that the Shanghai championships, followed next year by the World Mind Sports Games in Beijing, will stimulate more interest in bridge.

José Damiani, president of the World Bridge Federation, congratulated the organizers – the CCBA, Shanghai Bridge Association and the Shanghai Sport Federation – for the choice of venue. “The convention center is absolutely marvellous,” he said. “The players will be very comfortable.”

Damiani said that in his world travels on behalf of bridge, he has noted a “special situation” regarding bridge in China. Bridge, he said, has very strong government support in China, providing hope that the teaching of bridge in schools may become a reality.

Asked to assess the Chinese women’s team competing in the Venice Cup, Damiani chose a diplomatic response: “They are very, very good – and they are good friends of mine.”

Damiani said he has played against the Chinese women on more than one occasion and found them to be especially good at concentration.

The WBF president said he expects good performances from Chinese teams in the Bermuda Bowl, Venice Cup and Senior Bowl in Shanghai: “I am more than confident that China will have very good results.”