India scripted history in China as the senior bridge team led by Dipak Poddar settled for the bronze medal for the very first time in World Bridge Championships. This is a huge improvement from the senior men as they had finished 4th in the previously-held competition in France two years ago.
In the competitive tournament held in China, Indian team have not won a single medal in championships 44-year history. However, the senior men broke stereotypes and won a bronze medal. It was also made official by the Bridge Federation of India.
The senior Indian bridge team consisting of captain Dipak Poddar, Jitendra Solani, Subhash Dhakras, Ramamurthy Sridharan, Subrata Saha and Sukamal Das, settled for the bronze medal, a media release stated.
Anal Shah works as a coach while Vinay Desai works as a technical analyst. These two were the other members of the team, the media release stated.
“It was a collective team effort. We came 4th at the World Bridge Championships at Lyon in France 2 years ago and are extremely happy to be able to do better this time around. We shall try our maximum best to clinch the gold medal for India the next time,” Poddar added in a statement.
For the unversed, World Bridge Team Championships is a ‘new name’ for the biennial meet which is conducted by the World Bridge Federation in odd years.
Digging it in detail, there are three main events- World Team Championships for national teams in 3 flights namely Open, Women, and Seniors.