The first-ever FISU World University Mind Sports Championship Mind Sports concluded on Friday, October 30, with several EUSA member nations finishing on the podium.

The Mind Sports Championship, involving competitions in both Bridge and Chess, was originally scheduled to be held in Bydgoszcz, Poland, but was switched to an online format due to the current COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, over 500 participants registered for the event, which took place from October 26-30, and was livestreamed on FISU’s various media platforms, providing several entertaining match-ups across the five days of action.

Several EUSA member associations were involved in both competitions, and while China emerged victorious in both events, the likes of Italy, France, Ukraine and Armenia all ended up in the medal positions.

Bridge

With 26 teams involved in the Bridge competition, the final day’s action saw Team China 1 and Italy 1 battling it out for overall honours. In the end, China were comfortable 141-71 winners in a 48 board match, while in the bronze medal play-off, France beat Poland 72-40 (32 boards).

Final Bridge rankings:

1. China: Zijie Chu, Songyuan Guo, Yifan Qu, Yuyang Wang, Yanwei Zhang, Shijiao Zhang

2. Italy: Giovanni Donati, Gabriele Giubilo, Gianmarco Giubilo, Andrea Manganella, Federico Porta Tadolini, Sebastiano Scata

3. France: Raphael Basler, Luc Bellicaud, Artur Boulin, Maxence Fragola Nao Tabata, Melic Dufrene

Chess

China also topped the podium among the 78 registered teams in the Chess competition with perfect scores of 18/18 in the qualification stage and 8/8 in the play-offs, losing just one of the 52 individual matches they were involved in across the entire event.

After beating top-ranked Armenia in the semi-final, they faced off against Ukraine in the gold-medal match, and after three draws, it was China 1 team captain Lei Tingije, silver medallist at the World Rapid Chess, who emerged victorious to secure the overall victory for her team.



Armenia and Belarus faced off in the bronze-medal match-up, and once again, after three draws, the final matched proved pivotal with Armenia earning the win to secure third place.

Final Chess rankings:

1. China
2. Ukraine
3. Armenia

On the final day of the chess competition, International Chess Federation Vice President Mr Lukasz Turlej addressed the online audience, complementing the event while revealing his hope for the game of Chess in future.

“Chess is both, a game and a tool for education,” he said. “The 2020 FISU World University Championship Mind Sports has been a success for FISU and for the Polish University Sports Federation. It was a great event, gathering 551 student athletes from four continents and forty countries. Chess will only get stronger and stronger in the family of university sport.”

For detailed information and results from the event, please visit www.fisu.net.