Anna Maria Torlontano reports:

The Women’s Online Bridge Club is developing quite well and is providing an excellent service for women from all over the world to enjoy playing bridge online, with friends in a social and relaxed atmosphere. We have nearly 2,500 members and the club is growing in numbers almost daily as those who are members encourage their friends to join in and participate.

The Festival was an enjoyable event, with 2 tournaments being run daily for 7 days. We had players from some 90 countries taking part, and I believe that the fact that we now offer WBF Online Master Points to the top 20 individual places in the overall classification has encouraged a stronger and better participation. About 10% of our membership played in the Festival but I am quite certain that as our membership grows over the next year, this will increase. In Philadelphia the Women’s Committee will, of course, discuss such things as the timing of the tournaments to see what improvements can be made but I can tell you that the reaction from the players was extremely positive and they are already looking forward to the next time.

The overall winners were our dear friends Maud Khouri and Lily Khalil from Egypt, with Teresa Roquette from Portugal coming in third place. Certificates have been sent out to the winners, and these can be viewed on our website at www.wbfwomensbridgeclub.org together with the full ranking lists from the event. I would like to express my warm thanks to Marijke Blanken who manages our website so beautifully and has created these certificates for us.

Now we start to look forward to the Women’s Festival to be held in Thailand early next year, and begin the publicity and planning for that, as well as for the continuation of our Online Bridge Club and next year’s Online Festival. I rely upon all of you to assist us with the publicity for these events and know that I can count on your continued co-operation to help us develop Women’s Bridge in accordance with the ethos of the International Olympic Committee.

• For details, rankings and results, click here