45th GENERALI European Bridge Championships, Arona, Tenerife, Canary Islands Sunday, 17 June 2001

Greetings from the EBL President

Exellentissimo Alcalde de Arona, Mister President of the World Bridge Federation, Authorities, Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Arona, Tenerife, Canary Islands for the 45th Generali European Bridge Championships.

After Sorrento, last March, we are proud to be offer you the possibility to enjoy all together another important European event in another marvellous place, the Canary Islands or "The Happy Islands", as they were called by the Romans and Greeks.

The organisation of a championship like this, which involves for two weeks more than seven hundred players, eighty tournament officials and around a hundred journalists, requires very hard work and we, together with our Canarian friends of the Organising Committee, have been working hard on the organisation for the past year.

 

With the strong support of the Canary Government, the Tenerife Cabildo and the Ayuntamiento of Arona, we have managed to achieve excellent results. However, when the final curtain falls on these championships I hope that you, the real judges of our work, will appreciate our efforts and will take good memories of them back home with you.

I am sure, dear friends, that you will help us run these championships in the best way possible, with your usual fair play, behaviour, ethics and sportsmanship, and thus confirming that the dignity which the Olympic Committee bestowed on bridge, through its recognition, is well deserved and that we are ready to participate in the Olympic Games together with all the other Olympic Sports.

I trust that you will accept with patience and kindness any possible mishaps and errors you may face and will forgive us, remembering that only by working is it possible to make mistakes. In any case, it is your appreciation and satisfaction that give us the greatest gratification.

During these championships we will hold the General Assembly of the European Bridge League. This will be the first General Assembly in the history of the League, and it will take place as a result of the approval of the new Statutes in Maastricht last September. The present Executive Committee is in the middle of its term of office, having started in Malta in 1999, and we will now have the election of four Members of the Executive Committee.


Sabine Auken, Gianarrigo Rona (president) and Laurens Hoedemaker
 

I wish to thank my two colleagues who have decided not to stand for re-election for their contribution and support in running the League and I hope to receive their help in the future even though they will no longer be on the Board. I know perfectly well that it is not quite correct protocol, and I hope that our Master of Ceremonies will forgive me, but I would like to invite up onto the stage to receive your applause two very special people and your great friends and mine, Sabine Auken from Germany and Laurens Hoedemaker from the Netherlands.

I personally, and also on behalf of my colleagues of the Executive Committee, wish to thank all the delegations and players of the European NBOs for coming here. I wish you all a fantastic championship and a pleasant stay in Arona and Mare Nostrum Resort, a beautiful venue which seems almost to have been specially built to host a bridge competition, both for the playing sessions and leisure time. I wish you all the best!

And now, dear friends, I am proud and honoured to declare open the 45th Generali European Bridge Championships, the first of the third millennium.


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