2013 D22 GNT Teams and Their Fabulous Results at Atlanta!
Four teams won their respective flights at the D22 final in Dana Point. The District provided the winning teams with a $2,000 team subsidy to help defray their expenses spent traveling to the Summer Nationals in Atlanta.
To recap the D22 GNT flight winners
Open Flight: Phil Clayton, Chris Larsen, Joe Kivel, and Wafik Abdou
Flight A: Weishu Wu, Bo Liu, Philip Hiestand, Xiao-Yan Gong, Soichi Yoshihiro
Flight B: Nitin More, Ninad More, Shailesh Gupta, Dustin Stout, Xiao-Yan Gong (Xiao-Yan Gong chose to play with the Flight A team and was replaced by Ian Wilson)
Flight C: Carol (Sunny) Foster and Gary Waldron, Jim and Susan George
The Stucture of the GNT Finals
Each team at the national finals competes in their respective flights against 24 other top teams from all across the country. Each 25-team field is first cut to 16 teams after one day of Swiss play, and the next day cut in half via an all-day KO to a round of eight. To make the top eight overall positions, i.e. quarters or better, you must survive to the third day.
Results at the National GNT Finals in Atlanta
Flight A: They won the whole thing! 75 Golds! Please raise a toast to our brand new national champions! Trailing by about 16 imps going into the final quarter, they came from behind to win by a single imp! (Yes, overtricks are useful, even at imps.)
Flight B: This team reached the semi's! 30 Gold! Great going. (Ian Wilson was also on the D22 team that reached the semi's last year at Philadelphia.)
Flight C: This team reached the quarters, and were awarded 9 points for their great effort. Sunny Foster and Gary Waldron represented us at the GNT National Finals at Philadelphia last year, and also were a NAP representative to St. Louis this year but they've graduated, and next year they will have to compete with the B's.
Next Year's NAP and GNT
We are justifiably proud of the great showing our teams made this year But now let's start thinking about next year! Qualification at units and clubs for play at next year's district finals, which again will be at Dana Point, begins at the end of September. Get your team together and come play! The NAP finals is September 7.
