President's Closing Speech

Dear Friends,

Another chapter of our history is closing this evening and from tomorrow we will start looking towards the next event. But this evening we wish to celebrate this fantastic event which has just finished, the 46th European Bridge Teams Championships, and enjoy ourselves all together. This evening there are only winners, all of you, players, officials, officers, staff, kibbizers. With your behaviour, fair-play, enthusiasm, professionalism, and with your love for our marvellous discipline, you have enabled us to write another important chapter, to achieve another important goal.

On the occasion of this event we have celebrated the 70th Anniversary of our Championships and I think that we will all remember it for life. The emotion on Saturday 22nd was truly memorable and I personally will treasure in my heart the images and all the feelings they provoked. The enthusiasm shown by the old champions and former officers, who came specially to Salsomaggiore for this celebration, is a great lesson for life and will be stimulating for the whole bridge movement.

On Thursday evening we thanked the members of the Organising and Tournament Committees and staff, but I think it is right to thank them again officially here. They did a fantastic job. The organisation is like a body. Let me introduce to you, to receive your applause, the big chief, the heart and soul of this organisation, Jean-Claude Beineix; the head of the body, Ton Kooijman and Ghigo Ferrari; the eyes, Antonio Riccardi, Max Bavin and their Tournament Directors; the ears, Bill Pencharz and his Appeal Committee; the mouth, Mark Horton and his colleagues of the Daily Bulletin, Panos Gerontopoulos and all the staff of Internet, e-Bridge and Canal Plus, Elly Ducheyne and the Press Room; the lips, Jean-Paul Meyer, Guido Ferraro and Eric Kokish; the voice, Mabel Bocchi, Agnès Fabre and Carlo Arrighini; the shoulders, Gianni Baldi, Gianni Bertotto and all the technological operators and Attilio Ricci and all his colleagues of the Venue facilities; the arms, Fulvio Colizzi and his colleagues of Main Office, Monica Gorreri and the Duplicating Staff, Jan Louwerse and the Line Up people, Grattan Endicott and his assistants; the legs, our marvellous Caddies; the blood, our Secretariat with Christina, Federica, Andrea and Dirk; the nervous system, our Master of Protocol, Ceremonies and Hospitality, Annamaria Torlontano, our Treasurer, Mark De Pauw, and the On Site Organizer, Vittorio Brandonisio; the skin, Silvia Valentini, Elena Biagiola and Maggie Pierce of the Hospitality Desk and finally the capillaries, the Lavazza and Angelini Girls.

The serenity and friendship of the atmosphere of these 15th days depended by the ideal form of this perfect body, able to run the Championships without delay, mistakes and accidents. Thank you, all of you, with all my heart.

But in my opinion a perfect body is not sufficient to guarantee the success of a event. In addition we need a pleasant and comfortable venue and we found this in Salsomaggiore, the "Bridge Town". Salsomaggiore is able to give bridge players the impression of being at home and I think this is the best compliment we can pay this small big town. And let me now thank the town of Salsomaggiore Terme, and all its components, political and economical, public and private, represented here today by the Mayor, my great friend, Adriano Grolli. We thank them for their warm welcome, perhaps also too warm in the first ten days, but unfortunately we do not have a direct line to the climate decider to ask him to be clement with us. We thank them for their hospitality, willingness to help, marvellous attitude towards the guests, for their colours and flavours, for their cuisine.

I hope that you all enjoyed your stay in Salso and that tomorrow morning going home our idea is not to say "goodbye" but "see you soon".

There is another component which enabled us to run this Championship: the support of our sponsor friends. The resources needed to organise an event like this are truly impressive in terms of quantity and quality and without the help of our sponsor friends it would be impossible even to think of it. Thanks to all of them, thanks to Eventi Company, Lavazza Company, Angelini Group, Viaggi e Sapori, Villa Fabbrica, Fornaciari Wine Company, Bormioli, Barilla, Nestlè Italia, Parmigiano Reggiano, Consorzio del Prosciutto, and all the others who helped us.

This evening is for you players. And we are here to thank and honour you. Once more your enthusiasm, behaviour, fair-play, friendship, sportsmanship, respect of the rules and tolerance exalted our event. We are proud of you. You are the flag of our whole movement. You represent the best image of our sport which we proudly show to the world. As I have said before, tonight there are no losers; all of you are winners, all of you are happy to be here, to have participated in this great event, to be an essential part of our marvellous discipline. Of course as in every sports competition also in bridge there is a ranking and there are medals, but the medallists represent all the players and in presenting these medals we want to praise all of you, all together.

Our thoughts now turn to Menton 2003 where we hope to be able to achieve another goal with our first European Open Championship, a completely transnational event where all players from all over the world will be allowed to participate and it will be possible to compete in all series and categories, both in teams and pairs. We hope that all of you here will be present in Menton together with many, many other friends.

And our minds are already jumping from Menton towards Malmö 2004 where the 47th European Bridge Team Championships will be held. A delegation from Malmö, led by the Mayor, Mr Ilmar Reepalu, has come to Salsomaggiore and they are here with us now this evening. It will be a pleasure for us to link Salsomaggiore to Malmö, giving them after the closing of this Championship the EBL Flag, which they will keep in their care till the Opening Ceremony in Malmö when it will be raised there.

My speech over, now our attention has to be directed to the Prize-giving. I hope that you judge our work with benevolence, forgiving our errors and being convinced that we did our best.

Thank you again and again. I wish you a safe journey home. See you soon.