Olympiad Updates (Open Forum)

This is an open forum for teams and players to write about their experiences at the 2010 Chess Olympiad in Khanty Mansiysk, Russia. There are 157 teams scheduled to participate and an important FIDE election for the office of President. Olympiad tournaments are filled with memories, so we would like you to share yours with The Chess Drum community. 🙂

Feel free to send photos and annotated games as the tournament evolves.

Please send any photos and game to Daaim Shabazz:

e-mail: webmaster@thechessdrum.net
Skype: dshabazz
ICC: chessdrummer

12 Comments

  1. Just heard from Kenneth Boikhutswane of Botswana who is stranded in the Dubai Airport now…

    10:45am Kenny
    Hello Daaim! hope you well. You coming to the olympiad?

    10:45am Daaim
    No. I will not be there. Are you traveling today?

    10:48am Kenny
    Yeah. Stranded in Dubai airport. Our charter moved to tomorrow and we never received correspondence despite my follwoing up and them confirming that we on the Sunday charter. Got here 5am and we board tomorrow at 0930 for Khanty. Its s big inconvenience, not even sure that we on the 0930 charter despite them confirming again today by email that we on it. you can imagine what it does to the players, 28 hours in the airport!

    10:49am Daaim
    Yes… there were several changes.

    So you cannot disembark? Too expensive?

    10:52am Kenny
    tried that roiute but way too expensive. would have had to pay visa each at U$157 dollars for 13 people. Hotel here at airport going at U$ 286 for two. There is no guarantee that if we paid we would get refunded despite claims to that, so we decided to play it safe

    10:53am Daaim
    Ridiculous.

    I’m posting this on the blog.

    10:54am Daaim
    What other federations are there? I hear that the Kenyans are there.

    10:56am Kenny
    We have Kenya, Nigeria, Zambia, Burundi, Malawi, and two teams from Asia I have seen. There could be others around the airport i havent seen.

    10:59am Kenny
    Zambia had their letter infoeming them of the changes dated 16th Sept! I am concerned about whether we will have accomodation as per our payments, especially for the single rooms.

    11:00am Daaim
    It appears to be very disorganized. Keep me informed. Will you be sending stories to the news?

    11:03am Kenny
    I will sending out reports to bots on progress of Bots team, as I try to come out of ‘retirement’. I will send you reports as well

    11:07am Daaim
    I’m sorry to hear about the problems. I have been covering them on The Drum. I penned an essay about the potential problems.

    11:10am Kenny
    how on earth does someone change flight details 2 days prior to departure as if we are using a bus?its a shame really, coz changing tickets means more costs for federations. and with such a short timeframe, there isnt much one can do

  2. We always have problems travelling to major Chess tournments ,especially the Olympiad.
    In Dresden many African countries could not make it because of Visa problems.

  3. From: Joseph Kaamu [mailto:josephkaamu@yahoo.com]
    Sent: Monday, September 27, 2010 5:06 AM

    Dear All,

    Yesterday Sunday 26th was a rest day and we used it to listen to the camps vying for position of president of FIDE, the World Chess Federation. The incumbent Kirsan Ilhyuminov is facing a combined effort of former world champion Anatoly Karpov who is backed by Gary Kasparov. (actually we got a chance to talk to Gary who speaks perfect English and to ask him what their team will do for the African bloc). As a result there are dinners put on for the delegates on a daily basis.

    Away from the food and onto the board, the ranking as of today is Uganda 103rd out of 149. For comparison, Botswana 104, Zambia 105, South Africa 122, Kenya 127 and Rwanda 147. At the top end of the scale, it is Georgia, Hungary, Armenia, Ukraine and Netherlands on 1,2,3,4,& 5.

    Today we entertain Yemen which has two IMs on 2400 plus, while the girls play Panama. The weather is windy but not typical Siberian cold yet. See you later.

    Joseph

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