Address from the Presidents
"Ce n'est qu'un
Au revoir"
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José Damiani
WBF President
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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.
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Giannarigo Rona
EBL President
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Dear friends, we have reached the end of the Pairs Championship, in
the middle of our Ostend adventure.
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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