Chess players off to World Youth Chess Champs

21 Sep, 2014 - 02:09 0 Views

The Sunday News

Sports Reporter
ZIMBABWE chess players are in Durban, South Africa, where they will be battling for honours at the World Chess Federation 2014 World Youth Chess Championship with over 100 countries participating.The delegation led by Idah Moyo, the Nash head in-charge of chess, left the country on Thursday for the Championships that will be held at the prestigious International Convention Centre in the port city.

The championships start on Thursday and will run until 30 September with players aged between eight and 21 years fighting for gold medals in their respective categories.

“The players went into camp last Sunday at Eveline Girls High School and the entourage has 18 players. We took part in the competition last year but we failed to get a medal, hopefully this will be a different year,” said Moyo.

The nation is banking on Nomalungelo Mathe who has showed her prowess in the game as she clinched top prizes last year at the National Heroes Championship and Bulawayo Chess Association Winter Chess tournament. She was also part of the team that travelled to Tromso for the 2014 Chess Olympiad in Norway last August.

The 41st Chess Olympiad is the most important event on the chess calendar, next to the World Championship.

Speaking from Durban, Mathe said she was nervous as the high profile event would feature the world’s best chess players.

“I am done with practice but I still feel a bit nervous. However, I have participated in other international tournaments hence I will be at my best as I will be playing against good chess players,” she said.

Midlands Province’s Cynthia Nyashanu is another medal hopeful having participated at the 2012 Poland championships and at another event in Dubai in 2013.

Bulawayo Chess Association chapter public relations director Russell Dzute said the team made the trip through financial backing from NASH and parents.

The youth championships, which come to Africa for the first time are expected to register record participants following the indication of interest by most countries which did not take part in last year’s edition in Dubai.

Last year India came first followed by Russia and the USA at the contest in Al Ain in the United Arab Emirates and 1 773 players from 121 countries participated.

FIDE stipulated that each national federation registers 12 official players and this means one official player in each category (under 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 years old and open ) plus one accompanying official while other players will be additional players.

Age groups taking part are under 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 and open with a Swiss System format and 11 rounds, the time format will be 90 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game; 30 seconds per move starting from move one.

Other countries expected to participate include England, Germany, Slovenia, USA, Iran, India, Russia, Egypt, Algeria, Zambia and Bosnia.

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