| 7th European Mixed Championships | Page 2 | Bulletin 4 - Tuesday, 19 March 2002 |
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Address from the Presidents "Ce n'est qu'un Au revoir"
On behalf of the World Bridge Federation I am more than happy to salute all the participants in the European Mixed Pairs Championship and to extend my personal congratulations to all the winners and medallists. As you know, the essential thing is to participate (as I did briefly myself…) and I am sure you will remember this event as a very good one thanks to the EBL and Belgian organisation. Goodbye to all of you who are leaving tomorrow. We will meet again all of those who are playing in the teams, but I hope to see all of you in Montreal in August for the World Championships.
I wish to thank the Belgian and Ostend Authorities, the Officers of the IOC, EOC and BOIC, the WBF President, and our Sponsor friends, who have honoured us by being present at this Prize-giving Ceremony, but moreover, I wish to thank all of them for their great support, without which this Championship would not have been possible. And I wish to thank our extraordinary staff, officers, operators, secretariat, tournament directors, appeal committee, press and bulletin, magnificently led by Jean-Claude Beineix, coordinated excellently by Ton Kooijman and Ghigo Ferrari. They gave us the opportunity to achieve another goal in organising and running our events. Ostend is one of the European towns which has hosted most bridge events and every time the bridge players have been welcomed with open arms and have always come in droves. This year we achieved a record of entries with 405 pairs playing. We are very proud of this record and we wish to thank and congratulate the Belgian Bridge Federation and its President, Mr. Philippe Coenraets, and the On-Site Organiser, my colleague and great friend Paul Magerman who yesterday evening received the EBL Gold Medal for what he has given to bridge during his career, playing, administrating, and organising. I am pleased now to present with gratitude the EBL Plaque to Mr. Philippe Coenraets, President of the Belgian Bridge Federation. Dear friends, I wish to thank and congratulate you, all of you, not only for coming, but also for your behaviour, fair-play, and sportsmanship. I hope that you have all enjoyed this event and I hope that this event has reinforced old friendships and created new ones. This is a tradition in Sport. This is our tradition: a tradition of common work, aggregation, friendship, and solidarity which we wish to perpetuate. I hope you will return home enriched by this new bridge and sport experience and will always have the memory of it. With many of you we will continue our adventure in Ostend for the Teams Championship, but to all the others going home I wish to express my very best wishes and my hopes to see you soon. Thank you again and allow me to use a friendly greeting to you in my own language, which I can surely pronounce better than the rest of my speech: "un abbraccio". |
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