Thursday 26 September 2013

Bali 12: End of the road for some

The quarter finals ended with mixed news for the English teams.

The women played three steady sets and never looked like relinquishing the lead they had built up on the first day. They now play China in the semi final. A win guarantees at least a silver medal. If you get up early to watch note that play starts at 3 a.m. on Friday.

The open team started the last set 65 behind and quickly moved 27-0 ahead but they could not maintain this and although they won the set lost by 52 overall. They did well to qualify and Monaco are tough opponents.

The Scots ran out of steam and conceded with one set to go. They are now in the transnational event.

At the end of the quarter final there was a second round of drug testing. The seniors don't get tested. The other two series do have tests and one of our players was selected.  50 pages out of 125 in the regulations are devoted to this topic and as there is one list of prohibited substances it means bridge players are subject to the same restrictions as greco-roman wrestlers!

Outside the venue they are preparing for next week's visitors and as that will include Presidents Obama and Putin a lot of street sweeping and minor repair is going on.


6 comments:

  1. I was quite surprised that USA 1 chose to play England in the quarters. If I have read the situation correctly, leaders Netherlands has picked Turkey, Leaving USA1 the choice of USA 2, France and England. It probably would not have gone down well back home if they had chosen USA 2 so I can understand that, but facing the choice of France or the reigning Olympiad (sorry, World Mind Sports as it is called now) and European Champions. I would have thought France would have been the obvious choice. It seems like they chose England for the carry over. I suspect they are ruing that decision now. Well done our women, keep up the good work.

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  2. Maybe they thought that the English were exhausted - after all they didn't exactly storm through the last rounds of the Round Robin.

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    1. I doubt they were so foolish! We could have done better in the round robin but there is little difference in reality between about 4th and 8th.

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  3. France were the VT holders and USA 1's carry forward position was better against England than France. I was not at all surprised - indeed, I predicted it to Jeremy shortly before the draw was announced

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  4. Although the regulations permitted the two USA teams to play each other the story here was that USA1 did not want to hence restricting their choice.

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