India's U-31 bridge team wins historic bronze medal at the World Youth Championships

India's Under-31 bridge team won a historic bronze medal at the recently concluded World Youth Championships at Veldhoven, Netherlands, on Monday.

Also Read: Commonwealth Youth Games 2023: Shoan Ganguly and Anupriya Valliyot claim silver and bronze medals respectively

India beat China by 12 IMPs. The match was played over three sets and 54 boards. They took a slender lead of three IMPs after first set (43-40) but lost the second set 27-36, with the lead shifting to China. However, in the last set, the Indians clinched the issue 42-28 to bag the World Youth Championships bronze medal. At the same time, France claimed the gold medal while the silver went to Belgium.

The Indian U-31 Bridge team lost narrowly to eventual winners France in the semis, before making a strong comeback to beat China 112-104 in the 🥉 medal play-off match.

Details:https://t.co/cJvPc0iHRC

— The Bridge (@the_bridge_in) August 8, 2023

According to a national federation release, the Indian team beat Bulgaria to make it to the World Youth Championships semi-finals but lost to France by a narrow margin at that stage. However, shrugging off the debacle of the semi-finals, they came back strongly to beat a strong Chinese team that had topped the league stage 112-104 in the playoffs and earned a podium finish for the Bronze Medal.

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The India U-31 team was led by coach and non-playing captain Shib Nath Dey Sarkar. Shib Nath won a gold medal at the 2018 Jakarta Asian Games. Meanwhile, the Indian team was represented by three pairs of Sayantan Kushari-Sagnik Roy, Pritam Das-Souvik Kar, and Swarnashish Chatterjee-Wrik Chakraborty.

Bridge is also a part of the Asian Games to be held in Hangzhou, China. The Indian senior team will earlier take part in the World Championship to be held in Morocco later this month.