{"id":873,"date":"2015-09-01T09:53:47","date_gmt":"2015-09-01T07:53:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/funbridge.com\/blog\/en_us\/?p=873"},"modified":"2021-02-08T09:52:41","modified_gmt":"2021-02-08T07:52:41","slug":"looking-back-on-the-victory-of-the-french-girls-team-at-the-european-youth-team-championships-held-in-tromso","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/funbridge.com\/blog\/en\/looking-back-on-the-victory-of-the-french-girls-team-at-the-european-youth-team-championships-held-in-tromso\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking back on the victory of the French Girls Team at the European Youth Team Championships held in Troms\u00f8"},"content":{"rendered":"

This year, the European Youth Team Championships took place in Troms\u00f8, Norway, from 18th<\/sup> to 25th<\/sup> July. The French Girls Team, led by J\u00e9r\u00f4me Rombaut, managed to retain its European crown and so celebrates its second title win. We may recall that the \u201cLadies\u201d also won the World Championships in the period in between the European events!<\/p>\n

J\u00e9r\u00f4me Rombaut goes back over the Troms\u00f8 Championships.<\/p>\n

\"winners-blog750\"<\/p>\n

Our group was made up of:<\/p>\n

Anne-Laure Huberschwiller<\/strong> \u2013 25 years old, from Thiais, a bridge teacher.<\/p>\n

Jennifer Mourges<\/strong> \u2013 24 years old, from Mont de Marsan, a bridge teacher.<\/p>\n

Sol\u00e8ne Th\u00e9paut-Ventos <\/strong>\u2013 24 years old, from Paris, holder of an \u201cagr\u00e9gation\u201d in mathematics.<\/p>\n

Sarah Combescure <\/strong>\u2013 18 years old, from Lyon, an accounting student.<\/p>\n

Ana\u00efs Leleu<\/strong> \u2013 18 years old, from Lille, a student at Sciences-Po Paris.<\/p>\n

Mathilde Thuillez<\/strong> \u2013 18 years old, from Paris, a first-year medical student.<\/p>\n

The Championships were held in Troms\u00f8, a city located at the very north of Norway, nearly at the same latitude as Greenland! At that time of the year, there are only 20 minutes of darkness per day because it is the summer season. In other words, we continuously enjoyed the sunshine and often had trouble sleeping.<\/p>\n

Six teams among the best ones in the world were present at these Championships. On top of France, the title-holder, the most formidable contenders on paper were the Netherlands, Poland and Italy. In theory, Norway and Hungary had a lower level but we had to keep a careful eye on Norway, a team which is currently making significant progress.<\/p>\n

Our goal was to win a medal. Since we were the title-holder, we could legitimately go for gold, but with three very young players and a novice, it seemed complicated at this level. The other favourite teams were all made up of players from national ladies teams, which is not the case for ours yet (but for how long?).<\/p>\n

The three pairs had to perform their best if we wanted to achieve an excellent result.<\/p>\n

Overall, we played three matches per day because we played four times versus each team, i.e. more than in all other categories!<\/p>\n

The last match was pre-calculated to try to make the team placed first play versus the team placed second, and the team placed third play versus the team placed fourth. We knew that this last match could certainly be decisive in determining the colours of the medals.<\/p>\n

We started the Championships effortlessly on the first day:<\/p>\n