Friday, November 1, 2024 at 3:18 p.m.
Buenos Aires – The Moroccan Bridge team qualified for the first time for the round of 16 of the World Bridge Championships (World Bridge Games -WBG), currently organized in Argentina.
In a statement to MAP, the president of the Royal Moroccan Bridge Federation, Abdellatif Belkouch, welcomed this unprecedented consecration of the Moroccan Senior team and the honorable level displayed by the Moroccan players.
The Moroccan Bridge team, which beat teams as prestigious as those of the United States and France during the qualifying phase, was made up of the pairs: Abdellah Elghrari – T’kint Pierre Sibony-Jean Hay and Mohamed Benali – Chawki Bensaid.
The President of the Federation stressed that Morocco has always been present in all international Bridge competitions, qualifying on behalf of Africa, most often alongside Egypt and South Africa, explaining that Bridge is a “cerebral sport, which requires concentration and perseverance, requiring particular skills in the game of probability”.
Concentration is all the more crucial as a game of Bridge lasts 84 minutes (12 sequences of 7 minutes each), not counting stoppages in play.
Asked about the practice of Bridge in Morocco, Belkouch recalled that this game was introduced to Morocco shortly before independence and that the Royal Moroccan Bridge Federation was created in 1959, reporting 350 member players, concentrated in clubs of Casablanca, Rabat, Oujda, Agadir and Marrakech, the latter having hosted the 2023 edition of the World Bridge Championships organized by the World Bridge Federation.
He said that the Federation signed an agreement with the Ministry of Education to promote this intellectual sport among students in Moroccan middle and high schools.
Furthermore, Belkouch indicated that the Royal Moroccan Bridge Federation, represented by its president, took part in the Congress of the World Bridge Federation, held last Sunday on the sidelines of the WBG.
He specified that during this congress, which was attended by representatives from 83 countries, the World Bridge Federation encouraged its members to promote this “brain sport” among young people.
The participants agreed to allocate a substantial fund to the development of this sport and raised the contribution of new technologies in transforming the way bridge is played, before looking at ongoing medical research on the role of Bridge. in the prevention of diseases such as dementia and Alzheimer’s.
