14th World Bridge Games
Captain's Log, Stardate 120809-0
Greetings,
I have never been a big star trek fan - but I could think of no better title for this section of the trip - the plan is to provide a daily report on the performance of the Australian Open team which I am captaining at the World Mind Sports Games in Lille, France (I may not live up to this goal).
I arrived in Lille on Monday on the Eurostar from London - 1h 25mins for a journey that would take around 3.5 hours by car - unfortunately Australia lacks the population density to really justify an investment in high speed rail. After staying the night in a hotel with Terry Brown (and having my first Steak Tartare (raw beef with seasoning) for dinner which was very good) we hired a car in the morning and headed for Fromelles.
Fromelles was the site of a battle in WWI which lasted just two days - the mainly Australian forces were instructed to attack (run at) German positions which were heavily defended - 5533 Australians were killed, wounded or captured in just two days - no ground was gained. The town hall of Fromelles bears several Australian flags and there is a war memorial dedicated to those Australians who gave their lives. Seeing it was really quite harrowing.
From there we headed to Villers-Bretonneux which is the location of the Australian War Memorial in France. From the tower there were fairly impressive views of the surrounding countryside - although there were even more graves at the cemetary here - I think I had been to some extent desensitized after Fromelles. v From here we headed for the coast and stayed the night in Dunkirk site of the allied evacuation of Western Europe at the start of WWII. The next morning we continued North to Brugge - which had been recommended to me by several people as THE place to visit near Lille - we wandered around the centre of town and discovered the beer wall (where a bottle of each of Belgium's beers is displayed) and I had a beer looking out over a canal. Unfortunately Terry wasn't feeling well so we decided to head back to Lille - I think Brugge is definitely a town to which I would like to return however - it feels like I feel a European city should.
Today I arranged a sixteen board practice match for all nine of the Australian pairs competing in Lille and seven NZ pairs and four Canadian pairs. After that was the Captain's meeting (a fairly dull experience) and the Opening Ceremony. Somewhat to my surprise I was asked to carry the "Olympic Flag for Bridge" in the Opening Ceremony (I'm fairly sure this was because I was the youngest member of the Australasian contingent).
Tomorrow the event starts - in the morning we face Iceland, then we have a bye in the afternoon match and Costa Rica in the evening match. If we are to qualify for the knockout stage then I think we need to aim for a win against Iceland and a comfortable win against Costa Rica. I have submitted our line up for the first match - Terry Brown-Avi Kanetkar and David Lilley-Zol Nagy.
Some twelve matches will be broadcast to the world on the internet - five on bridgebase, one on ourgames and six on www.bridgecardreader.com/live (a camera technology which does not require an operator) - I don't believe any of the Australian teams are being featured in Round 1 - but check the bulletins when they become available (http://www.worldbridge.org/tourn/Lille.12/microSite/Bulletins.asp) - Session times are 6.30pm, 10pm and 1am Australian East Coast time.
Goodnight from Lille,
Michael Wilkinson