A look back at the Wujiang 17th World Youth Bridge Team Championships

The Wujiang World Youth Bridge Team Championships, organized by the WBF from 8th to 18th August in China have just ended. 77 teams and 556 players have competed in the 4 main categories: Juniors (U26), Girls (U26), Youngsters (U21) and Kids (U16). Here are the top 3 teams in each category:

Juniors: 1. Sweden / 2. Singapore / 3. Netherlands
Youngsters: 1. Sweden / 2. Israel / 3. France
Girls: 1. China / 2. Poland/ 3. France
Kids: 1. China3 / 2. France / 3. USA

Bridge champion and member of the Funbridge team Jérôme Rombaut has attended the event to encourage his son Leo who was playing with France in the Kids category. He has also supervised live broadcasts of matches on Funbridge. Here are his impressions of the competition.

A look back at the Wujiang World Youth Bridge Team Championships by Jérôme Rombaut

“32 different countries were represented. As often, many Europeans were there but we have particularly appreciated the high participation of Botswana with three teams registered (who came with their contagious good humour as always!).

In the Kids, China 3 has beaten France, whilst the team had entered the competition at the last minute to avoid having an odd number of teams!

Sweden has recorded back-to-back title successes in the Juniors and Youngsters after the 2017 European Championships.

This year, the favourites were:

• In the Youngsters: Israel, narrowly defeated by Sweden in the final.
• In the Juniors: USA, defeated by surprising Singapore who have nearly pulled it off in the final but lost against Sweden on the very last deals.

French Juniors had told me that three teams were standing out: USA1, Sweden and Singapore.

In the Girls, it is surely fair to say that France was playing for the second place (Polish girls finally became silver medallists) as China have dominated the competition!

Finally, here is a funny anecdote about the French Juniors.

The best teammates ever!

12 August – Match 2, Board 9:

A French pair of the Juniors team got a really bad score on this deal from round 13 despite that they didn’t do anything extravagant.

North opened 3D.  In balancing position in West with:

A 9 3 2  K 7   Q V 2  A Q J 6

French player Colin Deheeger chose to bid 3NT, the most reasonable contract.

South doubled 3NT and in East, Guillaume Langlet decided to escape in 4H with:

J 7 6  Q 8 4 3 2  5 4  5 4 2

South had a very nice hand to play against 4H (doubled!):

K Q10 8  A J 10 6 5  K 7  10 9

6 down for 1700.

When comparing their results with their teammates at the end of the match, board 9 caught their attention:

1700 vs …  +15 imps to their teammates! What?!

At the other table, the auction was:

North	East	South	West
	PASS	PASS
PASS
PASS	PASS

4H (only) went 5 down for 2800. As a result, France scored 15 imps.

Thanks Partners!“

Photos of the Wujiang World Youth Bridge Team Championships