World Bridge Olympiad: Italy, represented by Georgio Duboin, Norberto Bocchi Fulvio Fantoni, Caludio Nunes, Lorenzo Lauria and Alfredo Versace, retained its World Bridge Olympiad title by outpointing the Netherlands in the 128-board final which finished in Istanbul on Saturday. Russia defeated China in the play-off for the bronze medals.
Ireland's Tom Hanlon, Hugh McGann, John Carroll, Tommy Garvey, Nick FitzGibbon and Adam Mesbur were beaten by the Netherlands in the quarter finals and ranked sixth overall, the best performance by an Irish team in a world championship. In a separate ranking of participating pairs Hanlon and McGann established themselves as world-class players, finishing second of the 206 pairs who took part, beaten only by the Hackett twins, Jason and Justin, from Manchester.
The Russian women's team of Olga Galaktionova, Victoria Gromova, Natalia Karpenko, Maria Lebedeva, Tatania, Panomoreva and Irina Vasilkova beat the USA to take gold in the women's event. England defeated China for third place.
The transnational mixed teams championship was won by Zia Mahmood (Pakistan/USA), Sabine Auken (Germany), and Paul Chemla and Catherine d'Ovideo (France).
The Batov Bulgarian team was second while the beaten semi-finalists Allix, France, and Zhang, China, shared the bronze medals.