More geopolitics than sport in Chess Olympiad in India
The games began yesterday in Chennai, chess central for sports fans. Russian, Chinese, and Pakistani players are absent, the latter because of the Kashmir question. As the game gains in popularity in India, chess coaches are now in short supply.
Milan (AsiaNews) – For the first time in 30 years, the Chess Olympiad is back in Asia, with the kick-off yesterday in Mamallapuram, near Chennai (Tamil Nadu).
The 44th edition of the games, which will end on 10 August, was supposed to take place in Russia, but was moved to India due to the war after the International Chess Federation (FIDE[*]) decided to exclude Russia (along with Belarus).
With no explanations China decided not to send a team as did Pakistan. In the latter case, geopolitics played a role.
“Regrettably, India has chosen to politicise this prestigious international sporting event by passing the torch relay of this event through the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK)," said a spokesperson for Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Because of India’s “mischievous attempt to mix politics with sports,” Pakistan decided not to send its team to India for the Olympiad.
And politics don’t stop there. On 7 August, on the sidelines of the tournament, representatives of the approximately 180 participating countries will pick FIDE’s next president. The current one, Arkady Dvorkovich, a former Russian deputy prime minister, is seeking a second term.
His main rival is Ukrainian grandmaster Andrii Baryshpolets, who claims, along with two other candidates, that Russia has controlled the federation for far too long.
In a clever countermove, Dvorkovich wants five-time Indian world champion Viswanathan Anand to be his vice president. A well-respected figure, admired both at home and abroad, Anand is responsible for many Indian children getting into the sport.
In the other corner, Ukrainian Baryshpolets has teamed up with Anand's former coach, Peter Heine Nielsen, who now coaches Norwegian world champion Magnus Carlsen.
“It's great he promotes the game. Sad, though, that he aligns himself with the Kremlin,” Nielsen said. In fact, Russia's decades-old control over FIDE is increasingly controversial, especially after the invasion of Ukraine.
The Olympiad is also good for domestic consumption. Recently, top officials with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the ultranationalist Hindu party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, complained that the prime minister and India’s new president are missing from the ads promoting the chess tournament.
The Madras High Court in Chennai yesterday remedied that omission by directing Tamil Nadu to include pictures of the two leaders.
“The image of the nation should be of foremost concern to everyone and such representation, obviously, would be under the aegis of the Hon’ble President and Prime Minister of India, apart from the Chief Minister of the State, where the tournament is hosted,” the court said.
With very competitive countries defecting,[†] India’s players have a better chance at a medal. In both the open event (men and women), and the Women event, India will be able to field three teams.
Since the 1990s, chess has become more and more popular among the young and the very young in the South Asian country. In 2007 it had only 20 grandmasters, now they number 73, including two women.
Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, 16, nicknamed Pragg, beat Carlsen twice this year. Like many young promising chess stars, he started playing very young, at the age of eight in his case, inspired by his champion, Viswanathan Anand, who is now running for FIDE’s second top spot.
The chess prodigy caused a stir when he became an international master at the age of 10, becoming the youngest ever. Chess titles are awarded based on the score a player obtains over their career, on the basis of the statistical odds of winning each match.
Some 50,000 chess players are currently registered in India, but the Indian federation estimates that at least a million people play the game across the country. The demand is such that there is a coach shortage.
R B Ramesh, Pragg's coach, quit his job at a state oil company to open a school in Chennai that has more than a thousand students, a third of whom are in for free because they couldn't otherwise afford the fees.
Tamil Nadu is leading the way in terms of new grandmasters. At least 26 are from this southern Indian state that is home to a chess temple and is considered the game’s birthplace.
During the Olympiad’s opening ceremony, Prime Minister Modi mentioned various popular legends – most notably that Indian gods played chess with princesses and that moving the pieces on the chessboard was for centuries the favourite pastime of local kings and queens.
[*] Fédération Internationale des Échecs.
[†] China won gold in 2014 and 2018, while Russia won in 2020, ex-aequo with India, and in 2021, during the pandemic.
.png)
10/08/2004
05/02/2024 18:22
