January 31 2014, Bs As Argentina
Today begins the Italian Teams Trials. (If you have not yet read the note explaining the change of the methodology to choose the italian teams: from a captain selecting the pairs, to trials. [ilink url=”http://csbnews.org/new/italia-seleccion-de-equipos/”]Click Here [/ilink])
The decision to return to the trials methodology has generated much controversy in Italy, and although they have a list of 24 teams to play the trials… definitely very many teams, this list doesnt include the team that last year gave Italy the joy of winning a Gold Medal at the World Championships in Bali 2013.
This is the teams list: Click Aqui
In recent weeks several everybody coul read comments about the absence of the World Champions team in the trials, some of them in a high disapproval tone. That is why Fernando Lema, exclusively for CsbNews.org, yesterday January 30, interviewed Agustin Madala, the World Champion for Italy and asked him how he felt about the whole situation.
Below the video, if you are interested you can read what Agustin Madala wrote on his facebook wall:
Captions in English and Spanish
January 16, 2014:
People love to criticize. Why?
Why do they only worry about their own activities and let us do what we know and what we want? Why the Italian “fans” can not enjoy that Italy has not only won a world championship as never before, but also 8 European Championships, 3 Olympics, 2 Rosemblum Cup, 1 World Pairs… and many more other things.
If the Federazione Italiana Gioco Bridge decided to use trials to choose the next representative for the European teams Championships and therefore for the World Championship, why us the players dont have the right to participate or not? We have made many efforts and I think the results were gratifying not only for us but for the “tiffosi”= fans.
In the last year, I spent 1 full month in Bali, during which I gave my best, I fought against the time difference, the heat and the Small size T-Shirts the Federation gave me forgetting about my weight. I was almost deaf the first week, almost unable to sleep, due of a earache, and only skipped 5 matches in two weeks. I could not be in my daughter’s birthday, for the first time in her 5 years, and she did not speak to me for 15 days. My wife had health problems and lost 12 kilos in that month.
At the end of the world championship I traveled to Italy to play the final of the Societario and one week later I was back in Rome playing more bridge. I’m tired that some people speak about us as if we were mercenaries.
Our lives requires some sacrifice although you just think we throw cards on a table. So unless some of you pretend that my colleagues and I begin to comment on the lives of some entrepreneurs and their dealings with people, I want to kindly ask that people only talk about their own achievements, and enjoy the good and suffer for the bad, but of their own lifes and not ours.
Thank you
You are free to translate it into Italian or English or French. A very good year for everyone!