After the World Juniors, the youngsters have moved on now to the World Youth Olympiad which is also held in Turkey from 17 to 24 August and played over 10 rounds. This time Australia is represented by (in board order) Alex Grossman, Isaac Ng, Thomas Feng and Joshua Ng. Sadly for the Australians, they ran into a red-hot Greek side who gave the Aussies a 4-0 thrashing in the first round.
On the other hand, the Pinoys are serious about their business. They are spearheaded by no less than GM Wesley So who finished with a fine performance last week in the World Juniors collecting 8.5 points. In a supporting role to So are Haridas Pascua, John Datu, and Jan Emmanuel Garcia.
In the first round, the RP boys themselves dished out a 4-0 blank out of an unfancied Turkish girls team.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
I have read a rumour on russian chesschat that a few kids got seriously poisoned in the World Juniors and are possibly still in a hospital. Does anybody know anything about that?
Vladimir
Gareth got back today and has crashed for a few hours (I think it was about 42 hours travelling and not any sleep on the last night). I will ask him when he wakes up, but he did mention briefly that quite a few kids got sick and went into hospital and then back out again. He didn't seem to think it was anything major.
He said it was one of the best experience of his chess life and the strength was just incredible.
Jenni
there was a lot of people serıously sıck some *poısoned* or more accurate not beıng able to stomach the local food and water. there were no players stıll ın hospıtal when ı left gazıantep 2 days ago but there were a lot of players havıng beıng treated ın hospıtal for ıllnesses durıng the tournament and and out agaın.
Gareth's few hours sleep turned into nearly 20 hours. :)
Turning to the Olympiad team, unlike last year where we had a "dream team", this year we have a very young team, playing for experience. Isaac is still 10 and Thomas Feng is the oldest at 13. Alex is Australian, but based in California - his Dad wants him to keep his Australian connection and playing in a tournament like this with other Australian juniors is a great way to do it.
It will be tough for them, but I would expect them to do fine at the bottom to middle of the field.
I would like to see Australia concentrate a bit more on this event, as it is a good experience and less stressful than the world youth for some of the juniors.
Jenni
Post a Comment