Sport - Bridge

Japan beats United States for gold

Chennai: Never before in the history of the game have two world titles been decided by such narrow margins as happened in the 13th Bridge Olympiad which concluded on Friday in Beijing.

The Chinese women started the day trailing England by a whopping 83 IMPs with 48 boards to be played.

They recovered 47 IMPs in the fourth segment of 16 boards, but lost a further 11 in the fifth segment to be 47 behind with the last segment to go. At the end of Board 93, China was still 22 behind. It recovered 21 of it in the last three boards, but that was still one IMP short. England won the gold medal 223-222.

In the finals of the seniors’ event, USA began the day with a 43-IMP lead against Japan. The latter came back strongly in the fourth and fifth segment and was leading by seven IMPs by the end of the 79th board. On Board 80, Japan’s Masayuki Ino made an unbelievable play of combining a trump and a side suit loser into one, in a small slam contract and surrendering even that trick as the thirteenth after having made his contract, increasing Japan’s lead to 21.

USA gained 22 of it in the last segment and with one board to go, was one IMP ahead. Japan gained three IMPs in the very last board of the match to win the title and the gold by just two IMPs 202-200.

Italy defeated England in the open event finals with an easy 200-170 victory. This is Italy’s third consecutive gold in the Bridge Olympiad. The bronze medals were picked up by Norway in the open event, USA in the women’s event and Indonesia in the seniors’ event.

The gold medallists: Open event: Italy; Women’s: England; Seniors: Japan.

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