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The World of Women |
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Benedicte Cronier
She told me that in France the top teams play in a major league, three divisions of 16 teams. These events were held at the same time and in the same venue as the Women's league which is two divisions of 12 teams. For several years Benedicte was a players' delegate to the French Federation Committee and she battled to get this changed. She is convinced that given the chance and the training women are quite capable of matching men and being picked for the Open team - a thing unheard of in France! After all, 50 years ago, those passing the Baccalaureate de Mathematics were 90% men and 10% women. Now more of those gaining their Baccalaureate are women. So it is in every other field. Bridge is 30 years behind the times. After six years of beating her head against a brick wall over this she resigned from the committee. They then implemented her suggestion and now the Open and Women's events have been split allowing the distaff side the opportunity to play open. Already there are two or three who have reached the first division, getting on for half the second division teams include a women and the third division begins to look like a mixed teams competition! Whilst Benedicte feels it might be too late for her to improve enough to compete at the top in the open game but the opportunity should be there for the next generation of players. She also bemoans the fact that there used to be a club - the Bridge Club De Paris - where many of the greats used to play, mostly with clients, and young players could play and practise against them, but no longer. However, a bigger disappointment to Benedicte is that there are very few youngsters coming into the game. They are more concerned with their university entrance and education. The Federation does have a schools programme and schools' competitions starting with Mini Bridge but not enough of the youngsters are following it through. As Benedicte says, when she started 20 years ago she was the youngest player on the French team. She is still the youngest! Benedicte feels very strongly that the European Championship should be split so that the Open is played as a separate event and the Woman's could be played alongside the Seniors or the Juniors. That way a fine women player could take part in both series. A lot of bridge is played throughout
France but Duplicate is played mostly in the afternoon with 70% women.
mostly older of course. Whilst evening sessions are nearer 50-50 with
some younger players.
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