An English junior team has been invited to take part in the 9th World Youth Teams Championships to be held in St Cloud, Paris, from 18 –28 August 2003. The English team had apparently narrowly missed out on qualifying by finishing 6th in the European Championships held in Torquay last year. However, a change of venue so that the French team had an automatic entry by virtue of being hosts, and the inability of another team to attend, meant that an invitation to participate was forthcoming.

The team selected to represent England is as follows:
Gareth Birdsall & Ollie Burgess
David Gold & Alex Hydes
Ed Levy & Andrew Woodcock
NPC: Jason Hackett
Coach: Mel Starkings
1st Reserves: Michael Byrne & Alex Morris

The progress of the team can be followed by accessing the Championships website at www.worldbridge.org and there will be live vugraph broadcasts of the matches at Bridge Base Online. Viewing the event is free of charge - just go to www.bridgebase.com/online and download the free software you need to view the broadcast. Once you have downloaded and installed the program you can sit back and enjoy the show!