In a few minutes, after this ceremony, the Tunisian World Bridge Championships will be over. At that moment we will all have mixed feelings. We are very happy to have spent two weeks with you in this marvellous country, to have seen good bridge in the best spirit of a fair competition. On the other hand we are sad, sad that this is the end of a wonderful story. Indeed, there is no doubt that you all say that these Championships were brilliant and that you want to come back here for ever.

Our Tunisian hosts deserve all the credit for that, starting of course with Mr Slah Mâaoui, Minister of Tourism and Artisanat, who was the patron of the event and whom I would like to thank warmly for his exceptional support, together with the Office National du Tourism Tunisien. Clearly the President of the Fédération Tunisienne de Bridge, Hosni Zouari, has gained many white hairs in these days. He will be a very happy man tonight. We are glad to honour him and the Organising Committee.

Finally - and it is unusual for us - we want to reward the personnel and the management of the Groupe les Orangers through the Chairman, Mr Abdelhamid Khechine. We have had here all the facilities and help we need to ensure the best conditions of play. And we had also the best crew in all the fields: Tournament Directors under the leadership of Bill Schoder - Kojak - or Max Bavin Vu-Graph Commentators organised by Jean-Paul Meyer with guest stars such as Zia

Bridge Vision girls as well as the Team of Duplication were led by the French Bridge Federation whom I want to thank through their President Michel Marmouget and Jean Claude Beineix. Ton Kooijman was in charge of the management of the tournament and Elly Ducheyne took care of the Press Room while Mark Newton organized all the computers and the network.

Jan and Corrie Louwerse looked after the line-up. Claude Dadoun was the man through whom we got all the results so quickly even in our rooms And everything was sent to the Internet thanks to Panos Gerontopoulos, who is responsible for our WBF Web Site, and also to Bridge Plaza and Koen Gijsman.

They all took advantage of the Daily Bulletin which was written every day by Henry Francis and his squad. If the Appeals Committee did not have too much work, it was because of the fine preparation by Eric Kokish, Anna Gudge and Chris Diment on the systems, which were more simple, with no HUM systems and few brown stickers - which, however, did not affect the quality of the Bridge.

On behalf of my colleagues, I am more than happy to congratulate now the winners, the medallists, and to thank all of you, the players, for your participation which certainly gives you all the hopes for the future. And you know that this future will be highlighted by our entry into the Olympic Winter Games as has been predicted by the Vice-President of the IOC, Mr Hodler, who visited us so kindly here as well as our first star, Omar Sharif who will give the Trophy for the First Transnational Teams, while Mr Slah Mâaoui will honour with me the winners of the Bermuda Bowl and Venice Cup Gold Medals Next year we will meet again in Lille for the World Championships and then, in January 2000, the Bermuda Bowl goes Home ... to Bermuda for its 50th Anniversary!