OSLO, Aug. 5 (Xinhua) -- Bridge clubs in Norway are faced with an uphill task of recruiting more young people to ease the pressure brought by an aging membership and the hope to keep the country in the top position in international bridge competitions.
There are about 400 bridge clubs in Norway with a total membership of 10,000, but members aged under 25 are no more than 500, said Rune Handal, secretary-general of the Norwegian Bridge Federation (NBF), in an telephone interview with Xinhua.
The average age of those who are playing in the clubs is 55.
"We can see the same pattern in Europe as in Norway. The 46 countries in Europe that are connected to the European Bridge League have a low percentage of young bridge players," said Handal.
Norwegian bridge players took home the Bermuda Bowl from the 2007 World Bridge Championships held in Shanghai and they won two golds, one silver and one bronze at the first International Mind-Sports Games in Beijing in 2008, just a few weeks after the successful conclusion of the Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Games.
From 2000, the Norwegian Bridge Festival is held annually and in recent years Lillehammer, which lies about 200 kilometer north of the Norwegian capital of Oslo, has been the venue for the bridge festival.
The 11th Norwegian Bridge Festival runs from July 30 to Aug. 7, 2010 at the Haakon Hall in Lillehammer, the host city of the 1994 Winter Olympic Games.
