President's Cocktail Speach

Dear friends,

Here in Menton we are celebrating for the first time the European Open Championship. When the first edition of the Daily Bulletin came out with the headline “A Star is Born”, my colleagues and I felt extremely proud, even prouder than we were already feeling about the number of participants, which had surpassed our expectations.
Probably like most of you, I collect and keep all the copies of the Bulletin and yesterday evening, picking up the first edition once again, with my eyes blinded by sweat, I felt like I was reading “Born under a Curse”. This dreadful heat and suffocating humidity have let us down. We are feeling like someone just about to enter his home, happy to soon be with those dear to him, who is then treacherously stabbed and robbed. We are feeling robbed of all our enthusiasm and willingness to offer you the best possible service. We are feeling deeply distressed for our staff who have sweated blood, and are sweating blood, without being able to have the reward of making you happy. We are feeling dreadful about not being able to do anything to alleviate the problems caused by the tropical conditions.

Over one hundred professionals started work here four days before the start of the event and they will continue working 15 to 20 hours a day right up to the end in order to make things run smoothly, without mishaps, by taking meticulous care of all the details, from the set-up, to the duplication of all the boards, registration and publication of the results and rankings, the convenience of offering free water and beverages, the services of the Press Room, the production and distribution of the Daily Bulletin, written by an impressive and highly qualified staff, and finally to the technical value of the competition format, its running and management. I hope, however, irrespective of these things, that you will wish to praise our extraordinary staff for the quality of their work and their self-sacrifice.

For my part, I wish to express my heartfelt thanks to you for the absolutely fantastic way that you are participating here in weather conditions which are truly prohibitive, and for the solidarity you have shown us with your behaviour, which deserves more than an applause. In particular I address this to our friends from overseas, who have had a long trip to be here in Menton, and who do not feel rewarded for their efforts.

Dear friends, I do not know what else to add, apart from the fact that obviously I take full responsibility for what has happened, also for not having predicted it or preventing it. I can assure you that in the future such an occurrence will never happen again, even with 50 degrees in the shade, although I realise that this is little consolation for you here now.

My friends, I thank you for coming, and once again I ask you to forgive me but in any case, I hope that you enjoy this evening in serenity and friendship.

Thank you all.