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In a dramatic finish, Russia-I won the open championship at the 33rd Olympiad in Elista.
In the last round the leaders, the USA (32½ points), took on China (29½)
while Russia-I (32) played the Netherlands (30) who, after a poor start to their
Olympiad campaign, had hauled themselves up to fourth place. However, having come within reach
of the medal positions the poor Dutch were knocked straight back down again, losing 3½-½.
This allowed Russia-I to overtake the USA who could only manage a 2-2 draw with China.
The second seeds, England, had a disappointing tournament and finished 11th (30½).
The women's Olympiad was won convincingly by China
(29 points), who led for most of the tournament.
Russia-I took the silver medal on tie-break from
favourites Georgia (both 27 points).
There are two reasons for Ireland to be particularly pleased with this Olympiad.
Firstly, there was Mark Heidenfeld's
score of 8½/12 on board 3 which qualified for an IM norm and automatically,
since it was gained in an Olympiad, the IM title (which normally requires three
separate norms). He won 6 games (including this
win
involving a King march up the board), drew 5 and lost just one.
Both Mark and Brian (who had gained his norms before the Olympiad)
had their titles ratified at Elista so Ireland now has 1 GM and 3 IMs
plus one more IM on the way (Mark Quinn).
Kevin O'Connell was finally
awarded the International Arbiter title 18 years after Yuri Averbakh warned him that,
as a member of the FIDE titles committee, he should wait a while before submitting.
Reminded of his comment at Elista, Averbakh's response was "Too long!".
Secondly, there was the 2½-1½ victory against Poland in
round 8, including wins by
Brian Kelly and
Colm Daly
against GMs
Krasenkow and
Kempinski.
Following that these two also racked up draws against Yugoslavian GMs
Ljubojevic and
Damljanovic.
Note that Brian managed a plus score on top board even though he faced
some pretty tough opposition, including 6 GMs (2 of whom he beat).
Gerry O'Connell had a baptism of fire but produced this crucial
win
in the last round.
Ireland's final place of 58th/110 with 26 points is typical when
compared with most recent Olympiads.
The precise final position is not very significant, of course,
unless it's very high (like Luzern 1982)
or very low (like Manila 1992).
It would be better to run the Olympiad about 10 or 20 times and take the average
of the final positions to get a more accurate estimate of our true ranking.
Well, in theory at least. Still, statistics apart, it's always nice to come
above Scotland and Wales (who both finished with 25½ points).
In the last round Ireland won 3-0 and shot up to 51th (out of 72) with
18½ points. The last round was
the perfect time to hit their highest standing, 11 places above their seeding.
Compared with recent Olympiads, where the
pattern has been more variable than the men, this ranking is about average
and better than the last Olympiad in 1996.
Considering they were without their two strongest players and had no
reserve board, it is clear that the ladies did extremely well and,
like the men, they also came higher than Scotland or Wales
(17 and 16½ points respectively). Congratulations to
Gearoidin Ui Laighleis (pronounced Garage-EEN ee Law-LESH),
whose performance qualified her for a FIDE rating of 2050.
Some of the usual players were missing from the teams. What happened?
Alexander Baburin, originally
selected for top board, was worried that the local people might resent the hospitality
afforded to the chess players, given the political and economic crisis gripping
Russia at the time. Mark Quinn
(or more precisely, his mother) had similar worries and both these players
withdrew from the team a couple of weeks before the event. Their concerns
were unfounded, as it turned out, but understandable in view of some
negative press coverage of Kalmykia and Kirsan Ilyushimov
(the Kalmyk and FIDE president) in the weeks leading up to the Olympiad.
Mark Orr, the original board 2,
had to withdraw on the morning of departure when his wife fell ill,
which explains why the team played with only five players for most of the
tournament. The exception was the last round when
Kevin O'Connell was busy with FIDE duties and
Mark Heidenfeld was exhausted,
leaving team captain Herbert Scarry no choice but to play himself.
The women's team was also one player short which meant nobody could have a rest.
However, this was not due to any sudden withdrawals. The top two Irish players,
Suzanne Connolly and
Mairéad O'Siochru, along with
Danielle Collins and
Angela Corry, had all indicated their
unavailability well before the Olympiad.
It had simply been impossible to find enough replacements to make up a full squad.
All the Irish games from the Olympiad have been archived
here,
all the British and Irish games are available at
4NCL
and all the games are available at
TWIC (number 205).
The original distributor was Russian Chess.
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