As I was writing this blog entry, Mike Passel sent us the message that Carolyn Lynch had passed away. Many of you may recall that she was the Sponsor of my team in Bali, Indonesia when the German Coughing Doctors cheated our team out of the Gold medal in the 2013 D’Orsi Senior Bowl. After almost two years of legal maneuvering, political posturing and determination, the WBF stripped the German team of the gold medal and awarded the Gold to our team at the Chicago NABCs in August 2015. The entire story is for another day, perhaps. At the time of the Championships, we all thought Carolyn would have many more chances to win the Gold and we looked to the future with hope and dreams. Receiving this sad news this morning, makes me think now ~ Thank goodness she finally received her Gold medal before her passing. Unfortunately, for another team member of ours, Garey Hayden, who passed away in February of this year, he never received his Gold medal. I’ve been talking throughout these Championships blogs about the collateral damage caused by cheating…this is just another example. RIP Carolyn Lynch
Now back to regularly scheduled programming…USA 1 started Day 5 out in a virtual tie with Bulgaria less than a point behind in the leader board. However, that was the last USA I would see of the top for the day! Match 1 was verses England who actually legitimately won the European Team Trials after all of the cheating teams withdrew. England had not been playing up to their true abilities until they faced off again USA 1. It was actually more of a style thing in this match where USA 1’s pairs chose a particular action and Team England chose another – both conceivably the correct call but luck sided with the English in this match ~ Final Score: 31-9 dropping USA 1 down to 5th position.
Match 2 pitted USA 1 vs France who is only in the 2015 Bermuda Bowl because Germany withdrew due to a pair confessing to cheating. Despite their unusual entry into the event, France ~ three young pairs ~ has been dominating the field. USA 1 knew this would not be an easy match so we put our front four in to do battle ~ Meckwell and Levinstein. The match was on live vugraph on the second floor of the hotel for all to see. Unfortunately for USA 1, it was not a good match. The middle match is always the hardest for our team because of the time zone difference. The match starts 4am central time which is just when we would all be in a deep sleep! For whatever reason, strange plays resulted in a massive loss of 57-21 (almost as bad as the beating by USA 2 ~ but who is keeping track). This loss caused USA 1 to fall into the last qualifying position of 8th place just 7 VPs out of 9th place ~ yikes!
Licking our wounds after losing two straight matches rather badly I might add, USA 1 picked themselves up and went back in for the final match of the day against South Africa. The tide was turning and USA 1 was playing in a bit of luck (unlike the first two matches) finishing on top of South Africa 47-31. The win pulled USA 1 out of the last qualifying spot but just by 1 VP. It is amazing how a team can drop from tied for 1st overall to just barely staying in the qualifying field in a short three matches. Just a reminder that every imp matters!
In the other matches, USA 2 in the Bermuda Bowl finished Day 5 just out of qualifying position 9 VPs out of 8th place. In the Venice Cup (Women), USA 2 finished the day at the top of the leader board, while USA 1 is in 3rd place going into Day 6. In the D’Orsi Bowl (Seniors), USA 1 (the clear favorites of the tournament) are in 2nd place, while USA 2 is in 4th. All four teams in both the Venice Cup and the D’Orsi Bowl are in good position to qualify at the end of Saturday.
Tomorrow’s Matches for USA 1 are the following:
New Zealand at 11am
United Arab Emirates at 2:30pm (BBO)
China at 5:20pm (BBO)
If you are awake at these hours (Chennai Time), then just onto BridgeBaseOnline.com and watch the matches. Otherwise, visit the Running Scores and Bulletin Page for final results of the day.
See you online!
