Saturday 31 October 2009

He who laughs last

The European Teams Championship finished earlier today with an interesting, and surprising winner. Having followed the tournament through both the traditional chess media, and Google News, I picked up a number of interesting side stories.
For example, the coverage of the Round 7 match between Armenia and Azerbaijan seemed to carry a little extra venom, due to the recent enmity between the two countries. With the match ending in a 2.5-1.5 win for Armenia, the Aysor (Armenia) news outlet couldn't resist a dig at the losing team with a headline that read "Azerbaijani chess players slaped(sic) in the face of their own media"
I don't know how much that article stung the Azerbaijani players but of course they had the last laugh, finishing as the winners of the ETC. Going into the final round tied with Russia, the picked up the 2 points with a win over The Netherlands (2.5-1.5), while Russia was held to a 2-2 draw by Spain.
Russia went one better in the Womens championship, finishing first on tie break, over Georgia.
Click for the results of the Championship and the Womens Championship.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

How did Azerbaijan get into the European Championship ? They aren't located in Europe...