GCF name team of ten for 44th FIDE Olympiad in India

Jun 11, 2022 Sports

After an intensive selection process, the Guyana Chess Federation has named 10 chess players who will represent Guyana at this year’s 44th FIDE Olympiad in Chennai.
India will be hosting the Chess Olympiad for the first time in almost 100 years of the game’s history. For the Open category, the five males selected are CM Taffin Khan, FM Anthony Drayton, CM Wendell Meusa, Roberto Neto, and Loris Nathoo.

Guyana’s Ten-member team will be preparing with GM Georg Mohr and IM Atanu Lahiri prior to the event.

Meusa is the reigning National Champion and has notably won the title eight times in his chess career. Khan is the former National Champion and he, along with the rest of the male team, are no strangers to the Olympiad.
In the women’s category, the GCF has selected its youngest contingent ever for the games. This team is comprised of 18-year-old Sasha Shariff, 14-year-old Pooja Lam, 12-year-old Anaya Lall, 20-year-old Jessica Callender and 21-year-old Nellisha Johnson.
From the women’s team, only Sasha Shariff and Johnson have experience competing at an Olympiad tournament while Callender has only competed in Online Olympiads.
Lam is the reigning National Women’s Champion and the country’s youngest National women’s champion since the tournament first began in 2014.
Lall is the first chess player with a disability to ever travel to represent Guyana on a National team. The Deaf chess player was also Guyana’s first chess player with a disability to represent Guyana in an International Competition last year when she competed virtually in the World Chess Championship for People with Disabilities.
The travelling team will be accompanied by Team Captain, Davion Mars, and Head of the Delegation, Jaishree Lam. Additionally, the team members will undergo training with GM Georg Mohr and IM Atanu Lahiri in preparation for the high-level event.
Guyanese have competed in the Chess Olympiad as far back as the late 1970s, when Guyana was known as the best in the Caribbean at the sport.
This was followed by a large gap when Guyana competed in no Olympiads for 36 years, until a team competed in Norway 2014. Since then, we have not missed a single Olympiad event. Even during the pandemic, the Federation managed to put together a team for the FIDE Online Olympiad out of players who were competing virtually throughout the year.
The Guyana Chess Federation is currently seeking sponsorship for the team’s participation in the event which is widely as the “Olympics” of chess.
The GCF will also be hosting a fundraising dinner at the Roraima Ballroomof Ramada Princess Hotel on June 25th, with tickets available for just $10,000. Interested persons can contact the Guyana Chess Federation through any team members, executives or through our Facebook page.
FIDE and the All India Chess Federation have also collaborated to introduce the first ever annual torch relay. This Olympic style tradition will begin this July in India, the birth-place of the game.
The inaugural edition of this torch relay will only traverse in India due to the paucity of time. However, from the next edition of the Olympiad and onwards, the torch will always start in India then pass through FIDE member territories across the globe.
The GCF wishes to extend heartiest congratulations to the team members and every success on their journey.

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