The fortnight is coming to a close as six teams in search of gold try to summon new sources of energy and concentration to complete their respective marathons. Each of the three major championships features close matches to this point.

The Venice Cup and Senior Bowl will conclude today, but in the Bermuda Bowl, USA 1 and Norway will continue their fight with 32 more boards on Saturday. After 48 of their 128 deals, the Norwegians hold the lead 117-108.5.

In the Venice Cup, USA 1 and Germany are halfway through, and the Americans are ahead 98-66.6.

USA 2 in the Senior Bowl are up 98-82 over Indonesia starting play today.

Two bronze medals were awarded on Thursday as the Netherlands defeated South Africa 141-86.3 in the Bermuda Bowl playoff, and USA 1defeated Brazil 109-107 in a tight Senior Bowl match. The Americans had a 12-IMP carryover in that match.

The playoff for the bronze medal in the Venice Cup is scheduled for today.

In the World Transnational Open Teams, quarterfinal play got under way Thursday afternoon with the top qualifier – Team Russia – playing Zuomeicheng. Other WTOT quarter-final matchups were Markowicz – Germany Open, Jackson – Zimmerman and Burgay – Gordon. The Gordon team tied with Indonesia Open for the eighth qualifying spot, but advanced on IMP quotient.

Team Russia is Adam Zmudzinski and Cezary Balicki of Poland and Russians Andrei Gromov, Victoria Gromova, Alexander Dubinin and Tatiana Ponomareva.