The 2014 Chess Olympiad is only 81 days away, and my news feed is starting to show team selections for a number of countries. Both Uganda and Bhutan published there teams today, and over the next few weeks I expect to see plenty more.
The Australian teams were published in the Canberra Times on Sunday, although I haven't seen anything official from the Australian Chess Federation (For those interested: Smerdon Ly, Illingworth, Ikeda, Smirnov in the Open, Caoili, Berezina, Nguyen, Guo and Dekic in the Womens). The PNG Open team has been selected as well, and consists of Stuart Fancy, Helmut Marko, Rupert Jones, Craig Skehan, and Helmut Marko Jr.
With the travel subsidy provided by the Olympiad organisers, I expect that this may be a record breaking year. Every member of the Oceania Chess Confederation is receiving travel assistance (including New Zealand), so both the Solomon Islands and Guam should be making their Olympiad debut this year. With 5 'small' Oceania federations taking part (PNG, SI, Fiji, Palau and Guam), there might be a bit of extra competitiveness at the back of the field, as Oceania bragging rights are on the line.
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2 comments:
I thought that Australia is the one Oceania country that is NOT receiving financial assistance from Tromso, as we have four grandmasters on the books (though only one is playing in the team).
The OCC (Oceania Chess Confederation) is the organisational body that co-ordinates the chess federations in Oceania, as well as providing development assistance to these Federations. The ACF is not a member of the OCC, although if it were, would not be eligible for the travel grant.
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