FIDE Olympiad 2014 Tromso
Blind and visually impaired chess players participated in the chess
olympiad in Tromso 2014.
A FIDE commission for disabled chessplayers was set up. Chairman is GM
Thomas Luther.
The Olympiad in Tromso (2-8-2014 to 14-8-2014 was a success. In the open
section the IBCA team came 78th. There were 177 countries. It was a pity
that the strongest player IM Daniel Marin Pulvett (Elo 2425) could not
come. He tried very hard, but the government of Venezuela would not give
him the money for the flight they had promised. He was supported by his
coach IM José Sequera Paolini and his family. Both were very sad that they
could not participate in such an important event. Under these
circumstances it is a good result that the IBCA team became 78th out of
177.
The players representing IBCA were:
IM Pjotr Dukczewski, IM Yuri Mehskov, FM Jacek Stachanczyk, and FM Oliver
Mueller.
In the women section IBCA came 82th. There were 136 teams. The IBCA team
was weakened, because Daria Pustovoitova, a strong female player was ill
and could not participate.
Here the IBCA was represented by: WIM Lubov Zhitsova-Lisenko, WCM Anna
Stolarczyk, FM Debovska, WCM Shafiga Valner and Yryna Zarubinskaya.
See standing for open section:
standings open section
See standing for women section:
standings woman section
There was also a meeting chaired by GM Thomas Luther concerning the
disabled chess players. FIDE agreed to reestablish a disabled commission
with GM Thomas Luther as its chairman. This is a great success for all
disabled chess players as there will also be a budget.
A last remark. We who live in free democratic countries should be very
happy that we are able to travel freely. Some of us just cannot imagine
the difficulties some chess players had to overcome in order to take part
in the chess olympiad.
Christine Beutelhoff