Table of Contents Page Austria Are Girls Champions 1 Sweden v Netherlands – Girls Round 7 2 Russia v Israel Juniors Round 9 3 Austria v Israel – Girls Round 7 4 Double Dummy Problem 5
The Winners!

The Closing Ceremony and Prize-giving for the Girls Championship and Opening Ceremony for the Schools were held together in the Village Cinemas Complex yesterday afternoon. Ably compered by our joint masters of ceremonies, Stefan Back and Thomas Schonfeldt, the ceremonies were smoothly run and, most important, fun, as Stefan and Thomas once again looked as though they had been working together as a stand-up double act for years. The short dual-ceremony featured speeches from Marc Verdier, President of the Czech Bridge Federation, EBL President Gianarrigi Rona and Youth Committee Chairman Panos Gerontopoulos.

As had looked likely for some time, Austria have become the first European Girls Team Champions. Though they lost their last match to Netherlands on vugraph, thereby spoiling their otherwise perfect record of having won every match, Austria scored more than sufficient VPs to clinch the gold medal. Congratulations to Adele and Anna Gogoman, Iris Grumm, Caroline Hupka and npc Christian Felderer, who I am sure found this team infinitely less stressful to try to control than the Austrian Women's team, with whom he has been involved on many occasions in the past.

Sweden scored a maximum in the last round to close the door on Poland and clinch the silver medal. The Swedish team is Cecilia and Sandra Rimstedt, Jenny Ryman, Emma Sjoberg, npc Krister Ahlesved and coach Lars Andersson. Congratulations to them.

Poland too achieved a last-round maximum but had to be content with the bronze. The Polish bronze-medalists are Ewa Grabowska, Edyta Jurkiewicz, Joanna Krawczyk, Marta Maj, Kamila Szczepanska, Katarzyna Zegilewicz and npc Wojtek Siwiec. Once again, congratulations to all.
And finally, congratulations to all of the other teams in the Girls Championship for creating a tournament played in the best possible spirit of friendship and fair play. The first European Girls Championship has been an outstanding success and we can all hope and expect that this new Championship will now go from strength to strength and become established alongside the Juniors and the Schools Championships.