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Sitting in the bar on Sunday close to midnight, I had a lot of nervous people around me. The organisers were waiting for the last participants to arrive. One of the French teams was scheduled to arrive late as they preferred to enjoy the weekend in France, whereas the other French team had been severely delayed because of a bomb threat. Professor Kemal, from the European University Sports Association, was nervous, not because he was missing money, but because the players have to pay the EUSA-fee before any tournament starts. According to the official regulations teams that does not fulfil this requirement cannot compete. I, however, only waited for another glass of wine. Unfortunately the French arrived before the wine. The bar had been closed.
Waking up Monday morning and looking at the schedule for the first five rounds of the tournament, it was difficult not to find a Polish team playing another Polish team. I did what I could to find these odd matches and here are a few boards from these.
In the first round I kibitzed a team which name perfectly describe our sport
-“The University of Applied Sciences” from Den Haag. They played The University of Economics from Prague. The latter team contained a pair that recently, in Istanbul, was crowned World Junior Champions — Milan Macura and Michal Kopecky. As usual they have Pavla Hoderova and Jana Jankova as wings, and should have been coached by their Dutch captain Ine Gielkens.
However, when Ine was supposed to leave the Netherlands to start the long journey to Croatia, her car did not work. Luckily, she had another one. After having carried all her luggage to the other car, and started her journey, this car broke down as well.
She is now lying under the car and hoping she will arrive in Opatija before
the tournament is over. So don’t listen to the French guys if they are frustrated.
Christer is happy to see that Ine has meanwhile made it to Opatija. (She apparently also has another fellow)
By Christer Andersen
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