The Indian under-31 bridge team comprising Sagnik Roy, Sayantan Kushari, Souvik Kar, Pritam Das, Wrik Chakraborty and Swarnashish Chatterjee has won a bronze medal in the 18th World Youth Teams Bridge Championships held in Veldhoven, the Netherlands.
The team added a feather to its cap when it finished third by defeating China in the event for the event held from July 31 to August 7.
The Indian team, coached by former Asiad gold medallist Shibnath Dey Sarkar, narrowly lost to France in the semifinals but cameback strongly to beat China in the play-off for bronze. France beat Belgium 159-136 in the final to win the gold medal.
The Indian team defeated China 112 IMP to 104 in the third-place playoff on Monday evening, outscoring their rivals 43-40 in the first segment. In the second segment, China outscored India 36-27 but in the third segment, the Indians came back strongly and bagged it 42-28 for a total of 112-104.
Before that, India overcame Bulgaria 128-126 IMP in the quarterfinals after the team was ranked second with 253.79 points at the end of the 19-round preliminary stage with China (269.05 IMP) topping the table.
In the U-16 category, the Indian team finished 20th in the round-robin league and failed to make it to the knockout stages.
In the U21 category, India finished 17th while in the U26 team also came 20th in the preliminary round.