Fide boss impressed with the Lankan chess board
Geoffrey Borg, the Chief Executive Officer of the World Chess Federation or Fide as it is better known, said he was surprised to see the amount of enthusiasm among Sri Lankans, especially the youngsters, on chess. Borg paid a surprise visit to Sri Lanka on his way to Chennai, India to inspect on the preparations for the forthcoming World Championship match between top grandmaster Magnus Carlsen and the title holder Vishwanathan Anand scheduled for November.
“It was really surprising to see the amount of interest on this board game which needs a bit of extra effort than other sports. I visited several places around Sri Lanka, during my short stay and gathered a lot on how the locals think about chess. In general my
Fide CEO, Geoffrey Borg
assumption is that Sri Lanka is not so far away from producing a grandmaster in chess, with what it has is in possession,” said Borg.
The officials of CFSL called in a press conference to announce the arrangements of the upcoming 9th Asian Schools Chess Championship which will be hosted in Sri Lanka at the Citrus in Hikkaduwa from August 31 to September 5. Borg, who was obliging an invitation made by the CFSL President, Upali Gunasekara, was also an invitee speaker at the press briefing.
“I am hoping to make an official visit against in January 2014. This visit will serve as an orientation to what Sri Lanka and the Fide will negotiate in time to come. We already have discussed many aspects that will help chess further grow in Sri Lanka and there are other issues needs to be addressed. One such subject is restriction on athletes competing at the age category of 13 years and under.”
“I’m sure the Ministry of Sports wants medals and the Ministry of Education wants more educated people. And chess is a sport that has the ability of producing good results in both these facets. And then again all have their respective roles to play in helping chess grow further. Chess is a sport that depicts all the positives in life and so far with what I have witnessed in Sri Lanka, I’m highly impressed,” Borg added.
Despite the restrictions imposed by the Ministries of Education and Sports, Luxman Wijesuriya, the secretary of CFSL, revealed that they had made positive discussions with the government officials to go ahead with the tournament. The 9th Asian Schools Chess Championship will feature eight different age categories beginning from the Under-5 segment and onwards. The contest will showpiece the three versions of chess; classical, rapid and blitz, which can be directly compared to cricket’s Tests, ODIs and Twenty20 respectively.
“We are expecting over 300 players, 100 from overseas and 200 from Sri Lanka. If not for the positive discussions we had with the officials of the Education and Sports ministries, our youngsters would have easily missed out a great opportunity. The officials understood the fact that we had made the bid to host this championship two years ago, when the new regulation was not even thought of being introduced. Based on those facts we were given the green light to let our young competitors take part in the tournament. It will be nice to see our players getting along with others from Australia, Bangladesh, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Maldives, Malaysia, Mongolia, South Korea, UAE, Uzbekistan and Yemen,” Wijesuriya said.
Further according to Wijesuriya, the officials of CFSL had made fruitful discussions with the Fide CEO to incorporate expertise from international trainers and instructors. This move will provide the local arbiters and trainers to gain international recognition with a Fide certified license.
“When I stepped into Sri Lanka, I looked at areas such as state of development, technical and organising ability, the infrastructure, number of players and arbiters and the potential. To my surprise Sri Lanka was at an impressively high level in all these areas, which means the future of chess here has a lot of potential. However unlike some other sports, chess needs to reach the schools and to achieve that the sport will need the government backing. From our end, the Fide will support Sri Lanka beginning from January 2014 by conducting a certified trainers’ course. We will continue to support Sri Lanka.
Others also should provide backing to help chess expand. As I mentioned earlier there’s nothing negative to talk about chess, it enhances the character, the mental activity, thinking ability, team and management skills of an individual. There’s no need think about chess as a blotting sport. It’s here to unleash the intelligence in a person,” Borg explained.
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