Another very up and down day here in Wroclaw. More up for the U25s who have given themselves an outside chance of getting a qualifying spot if they can summon up a big finish. The highlight of the day was their comfortable win over title contenders Denmark, despite shipping out a 20 IMP swing on one board by playing in the wrong grand slam.
For the U20s it began with a nerve shredding win over the Israelis, but then they couldn't replicate the efforts of their elder compatriots and nose dived to a heavy loss to the Danes. They did finish the day by extracting an all-but-maximum from the bottom of the Austrians to lift themselves to within a couple of VPs of the all-important top six. A difficult day awaits though - the solid French followed by the table-topping Swedes who were in imperious form today.
For those of you who think we have an easy job as captain and coach. You know, fly off to lovely locations and sit around drinking tea and coffee and putting our feet up while letting the kids get on with the hard work - THINK AGAIN. Here is a link to a daily bulletin article written by Michael Byrne.
On page 22 he describes one of the typical kind of junior misadventures that we have to watch while peeking through our fingers, 20 times per match, 3 matches per day. Now tell me you could survive a week of this without needing a long holiday to recover. Or very strong medication. Or both!
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