The Olympiad Summary - The Issues

There were a variety of comments online about the recently completed Chess Olympiad in Tromso, from glowing endorsement to scathing criticism ... so I thought I'd give my impressions of some of these issues & whether I thought some of these comments were justified or not.

Location 

Tromso in northern Norway was chosen as the venue for the 2014 Chess Olympiad at the 2010 Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk. There were some issues in the lead-up to the event, most notably in terms of funding for the event & an apparent hole in the budget. In the end, these dramas were overcome & the Olympiad went ahead as planned.
Norway is an expensive country ($1 Australian is equivalent to just under 5 Norwegian Krone) & this was something of an issue during the event (and explains why I didn't get a haircut while in Norway!), however for players & officials this was reduced as an issue as meals were supplied at hotels in Norway. However for those visiting, or finding alternative accommodation, it was a very expensive trip. The general cost of things also meant reduced socialising away from the chess from what I heard, as the usual shout of a round of drinks was much more expensive than one would normally expect to pay!

The expensive hairdresser - men's haircuts from just under $60, while women's haircuts will set you back almost $100

The budget barber - just under $40 for men & $50 for women!

Fancy some takeaway? Burgers from 117Kr (just over $20); Kebabs from 89Kr (about $15); Fish & Chips for 99Kr (about $17) ... Norway is not a cheap place!

However on the positive side of things, the city of Tromso was a great place - easy to get around, friendly people (quite a lot spoke English as well as Norwegian) & plenty to see outside the chess. The view from the top of the cable car on the nearby Mount Storsteinen of the city (on an island) was fantastic!

Lovely view of Tromso from Mount Storsteinen
 

Venue

The venue, the Mackhallen, came under criticism from a variety of sources for a variety of reasons. The most common criticisms that I have read have included: the playing hall was cold & lacked air circulation; the hall was noisy; the hall was not big enough & players were cramped; toilets were not suitable; security checks took too long; medical facilities were inadequate; I'm sure there were others that I have not mentioned, but I'll leave my comments to the issues listed.

Temperature
Although the playing hall did not have air conditioning, I found the it to be fine in terms of temperature. I was in sector 5 & at the end of sector 5 was a corridor to the audience entrance, so this allowed for some fresh air to get into the building, but not too much to be overly cold. I can't really speak for the experiences of others in other parts of the building, but I had no issues.
Noise
If you read my first blog from the Olympiad (here), you will notice that I make mention of the lack of noise & how quiet I found the venue & I stand by those comments. Yes, there was usually a loud boat horn that went off about an hour into the round, but this lasted for about 5 or at most 10 seconds, so can hardly be called a significant distraction.
Room & Space
One issue that was identified early in the Olympiad planning (here) was that there were to be no small tables for match arbiters. Although I do not have previous experience at Olympiads to compare, I found the arrangements in Tromso to be perfectly fine. There had also been some discussion that the playing hall was too crowded, but on the contrary, I thought there was plenty of room for players, officials, spectators & anyone else who needed access the playing area.
Toilets
The toilets at the venue were pretty ordinary to say the least. However given that there was really nothing at the venue in terms of permanent toilet facilities, the organisers really had little choice but to bring in portable toilets as they did. Other who had been to previous Olympiads said that a similar arrangement had been done at some previous events, so it was not like it was completely ridiculous. I found the simple solution was not to use the toilets & simply wait until after I had left the chess & I could use the facilities at the hotel where arbiters had their lunch & dinner - much more civilised! GM Hikaru Nakamura was one to vent his displeasure on Twitter about the toilet facilities.

Portable toilets at the playing hall

Security
Security checks at the entrance to the playing hall, to prevent items such as computers & mobile phones from being brought into the venue, varied from day-to-day. On the first day, it seemed as though the staff were being very thorough & vigilant & this lead to long delays at the entrance (and the first round being delayed by about 20 minutes). The remaining days tended to be slightly less thorough, but still reasonably comprehensive. Having said that, I discovered a 'loop hole' to the security measures - one day I simply walked in the VIP entrance, which had no such security & I was able to bring my mobile phone into the venue (it was turned off in my bag & I didn't use it at all when I was at the venue). There were also changes made during the tournament to prevent cheating - such as banning players from the press area - not necessarily because there was an cheating detected, but more to prevent the possibility of cheating occurring.

Metal detectors & secutiry screening at the entrance to the playing hall

Medical
There were some criticisms of the medical facilities, particularly in the light of the unfortunate death of Kurt Meier in the final round. It seemed as though the response to Meier's collapse was reasonably quick, however I didn't have any personal interaction with the medical staff, so cannot really offer a particularly informed view on things.
On thing I did find online was a clip from Norwegian TV of the time when the Meier emergency happened. It starts with analysis of one of the top women's games & you can see that the players are concerned by the commotion that has started. When the camera cuts to the long shot overlooking the playing area, you can see two very different responses from people, depending on where they were - those close to the incident move towards it to see what is happening (you can also see Australian arbiter Gary Bekker in the foreground from this angle), while in the background (sector 5, where I was based), we see people hurrying towards the exit, in apparent panic! At the end of the clip, you can also hear the beeping that filled the playing hall for around half an hour while the medical staff tried to revive Mr Meier.

Final round chaos

FIDE Elections
In theory, the FIDE Elections were going to be a big part of the Olympiad, with former World Champion Garry Kasparov a seemingly tough opponent for the incumbent President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. Kasparov had spared no expense in his campaign, with posters throughout Tromso, on buildings, at bus stops & the like, while one only had to compare the stalls of the two camps to see this difference in more tangible terms

Kasparov posters at bus stops in Tromso

The Kasparov booth in full swing pre-election

 Another shot of the Kasparov booth with plenty of people pre-election

 The FIDE First booth (on the right) of Kirsan Ilyumzhinov's campaign

English GM Nigel Short was a strong supporter of Kasparov & was part of his team. He did a number of interviews while in Tromso, but there is a stark difference between the interviews before & after the election

Nigel Short talks to Danny King in Tromso, a few days before the FIDE Election

Nigel Short talking to Norwegian TV immediately after the FIDE Elections - you can see a significant change between this & the earlier interview with Danny King!

 

After the election, Kasparov took to the internet to express his disappointment at the election result. Kasparov's response gave three main reasons for his defeat, but perhaps one omission from this response is that Kasparov does not seem to take responsibility for his own defeat, mostly blaming external factors, rather than looking at problems with his own campaign.
Although personally I thought Kasparov's ideas seemed far more promising than another four years under Ilyumzhinov, his history of creating issues in a variety of places, both during (eg: split from FIDE with the PCA) & after (eg: his issues with Putin) his chess career, created some doubt amongst the various delegates who voted in the election.

Danny King, in his round review after the FIDE Election, included an interview with Anna Karlovich, who shared her opinion about why Ilyumzhinov won the Presidential election.

Danny King discussing round 10, as well as the FIDE Election results

Organisation 

Generally I found the organisation of the event to be pretty good. Yes, there were some issues - most notably with security & toilets at the venue as mentioned earlier - but on the whole, these issues were fairly minor in nature. The various staff & volunteers were generally friendly & accommodating in trying to sort out any issues that players or officials had.
From a personal perspective, the only real issue I had was to do with the distance that my accommodation (and that of most other arbiters) was from the venue & the daily commute of more than an hour each way.

Map showing the daily commute for arbiters to the playing hall.

Tournament rules

In this regard, there were two rules that created issues at the event - the 'zero tolerance' rule, where players had to be seated at their boards at the start of the game or else they would be forfeited, and the 'no short draws' rule, where players could not offer (or accept) a draw before both players had completed 30 moves, although players could still draw by other means (eg: triple repetition).

Again, Danny King interviewed Kirsan Ilyumzhinov before the election about various issues, and in particular the issue of zero tolerance.

An alternative option, which seems quite reasonable was proposed by Danish GM Jacob Aagaard on his Blog. It seems to satisfy both the professionalism argument of Ilyumzhinov, as well as accommodating reasonable alternatives if something does happen to mean that the players are not at the board for some reason.
To me the no short draws rule is something that should remain in the domain of invitational events, where players are paid to play & as a result should be expected to play fighting chess. At an Olympiad, although there are sponsors & a large worldwide audience, the incentive of the players to play is what is best for the team - an in some instances it could be that taking a short draw IS in the best interests of the team, so I see no problem with it. The rule also created some issues (and potentially silly situations) for arbiters, as unless there was a repetition, players who offered draws before move 30 was completed (so that the first legal draw offer could be made after white's 31st move) were asked to play more moves until they had passed this requirement - in effect receiving outside information or interference in the game! To me, this rule simply does not fit at an Olympiad.

 

Uniforms 

Although it was not such an issue at the venue, the topic of uniforms created a bit of a stir on ChessChat, an Australian chess forum. Below are a number of photos with some comments. My opinion on the matter is below the photos
 

The current situation - a 'hodge-podge' of generally smart casual clothing, with everything from suits & ties to t-shirts & jeans, as well as the occasional 'uniform'

The Latvian team had perhaps the best team jacket of all the teams that I noticed during the event - a maroon jacket (the same colour as their national flag), with a number of patches for sponsors (albeit that I think their main sponsor was their national chess federation), with a white polo top underneath, with sponsors on the back of the shirt. Of course it seems that wearing the short (or even the jacket at times) was not compulsory, so it did lose some of its impact.

The Italian teams (both open & here, the women) all wore black jackets (as seen on board 1 & the team captain standing behind). Elegant & smart, although the players could wear anything underneath the jacket.

Mauritania wore green & yellow sports jackets, in their national colours. A number of the smaller countries also wore similar 'sporting' outfits during the event.

Another photo of the Latvian team in their uniforms (even if not all members of the team are wearing the white polo shirt), with the Vietnamese team in their red sports jackets in the foreground.

Volunteers wore green t-shirts, so were easily identifiable.

The Turkish team were the other team that had an impressive looking uniform. In this photo they are all wearing their white polo tops, with national flag & individual name embroided on the front. One thing that the Turkish team did was to always wear their uniforms for all rounds.

The Turkish team also had an alternative red uniform, which also looked smart. Here they are playing Lithuania, who are wearing their green t-shirt tops, although the Lithuanians only wore the green tops every few days, with smart casual being the alternative outfits on other days.  

The Vietnamese team in their team jackets (and yes, I'm in the far left of the photo as this was one of the matches I was an arbiter for).

 The arbiters wore blue polo tops for the final few rounds, which looked smart & again made the arbiters easy to identify.

At the closing ceremony, the Hungarian team wore a sports outfit that they had only worn one or twice during the tournament, while the Chinese team all had matching polo tops (different from the polo tops they wore during the tournament) & the Indian team had what looked like a team jacket on. This looked good for the closing ceremony & gave the final podium a look of that of a sporting event.

Although the idea of players wearing uniforms is potentially a good idea, and would give the Olympiad much more of a team feel to the tournament, the difficulty is that any approach to uniforms needs to be consistent across all countries. With a number of countries lacking financial support or sponsorship, forcing players to wear uniforms would add an extra financial burden that might make players less inclined to participate in the event.
In addition, there is also the issue of what would constitute a uniform. A number of countries had shirts or jackets, but very few had any sort of standard pants, so that even the uniforms were not themselves uniform. This also detracted from the look of some of the teams, even when they did have their jackets or shirts on.
If you compare it to sports uniforms (eg: football of various varieties, basketball, netball, various other Olympic events, etc) it seems as though the general consensus requires both shirts & pants to match, with footwear being the domain of individual choice. Although bringing in a similar dress code to the Olympiad might have some positives, the logistical & financial difficulties seem to be too great at the present time to enforce such a code in the near future, although it may be something that can be an aspiration for Olympiads in the future.

 

Internet Coverage
This was one area that I think the organisers got exactly right. The coverage provided through chess24.com with IM Lawrence Trent & GM Jan Gustafsson hosting was very impressive.

Photo from the expo area of the internet coverage of the event

 The internet coverage included updated results

As well as cameras of the top boards in action

 

Videos were also available online & were uploaded to YouTube after completion

The complete broadcast for round 4 of the Olympiad

Australian GM David Smerdon joining Lawrence & Jan during round 10.

 

In Summary

Although the Olympiad in Tromso was not without its problems & issues, for the most part I found it to be an excellent tournament ... and am now looking forward to being an arbiter at the 2016 Olympiad in Baku, Azerbaijan! 

The Olympiad Summary - Being an Arbiter at the Olympiad

The recently completed Chess Olympiad in Tromso, Norway was the first time I had been to the Olympiad & I was there as a Match Arbiter. This meant that each round I was in charge of one match of four games putting two countries against one another.

Below is the typical routine of what a Match Arbiter would do at the playing hall:

Once you arrived at the playing arena, you saw the Sector Arbiter, who gave you the Match Sheet for the match you would be in charge of, as well as signs for the display boards & a sheet to keep track of the clock times.

Find your sector. I was in Sector 5, on the far right of the above map.

Arrive at your assigned table - you will notice that at the end of each table there is a sign at one end (at a low level - this was raised for later rounds), while at the other end there are three chairs - one for the Match Arbiter, while the other two are for the respective team captains.

Set the clocks & put out scoresheets for all games.

Later rounds saw the organisers add bottles of water to the tables, so you also needed to put these on the tables for the players.

Put the sign with the math pairings up so that spectators can easily see who is playing, as well as the results once games have finished.

Once the players arrive, things are ready for the games to get underway. 

Once individual games finished, you recorded the score, both on the official match scoresheet, as well as on the large signs displayed in the playing hall. This is of the Australian's final round match against Germany!

This is the sheet typically used for keeping track of clock times. Every half hour you had two write down the clock times for both players, as well as the number of moves completed for each player. This could be used to easily keep track of when players were close to making or had passed the time control, as well as having a reference in case a clock malfunctioned. This sheet is the one I used for the final round Peru v Italy match.

Towards the end of the tournament the arbiters were given their blue Arbiter shirts to wear - here I am with the shirt on, as well as my Accreditation, ready to leave my accommodation for the day.

A photo with all the arbiters was taken during the tournament - although I am technically in this photo I am not visible as I am sitting down while another arbiter is standing next to & in front of me, obscuring me from the camera!

This was taken by me AFTER the photo ... so I really was there!

We were also given the new FIDE Arbiters' Manual on one of the early days.

The Arbiters' accommodation was a big talking point during the Olympiad

The accommodation for Arbiters was fairly nice - this is the apartment section I was staying in, which was the smallest of all the accommodation options at Malangen Brygger.

The views from the apartments were fantastic!

Although the rooms themselves were tiny, barely big enough to fit a bed!



The big issue was the 70+km journey to & from the venue that had to be made each day. I tended to use this time for some extra sleep if I could, but it also meant that the arbiters could not really have a 'full' Olympiad experience because of the need for transportation (at set times) each day.

The buses themselves were reasonably comfortable.

 

Of course with an arbiter's job being what it is, it goes largely unnoticed unless something goes wrong. I think I was the only arbiter to do any sort of blogging about the event, so there's no 'alternative' arbiter perspective (at least that I have found - feel free to pass on a link if you find anything!) of events & the only things I have found online regarding arbiters have been largely negative. I'll present these below, as well as my own comments on things I observed.

 

Irish player Colm Daly describes an incident of a troublesome arbiter in one of the early rounds at the Irish Chess Cogitations Blog. The post also describes some of the issues players faced during the first round trying to get into the venue.

 

Danish player (and chess author) Jacob Aagaard described his experiences with a 'nut job' arbiter, although he points out that the other arbiters he had were excellent, on the Quality Chess Blog. I was in fact the arbiter for the Danes in round 4 & had nothing like the incident described by Jacob, so can only presume that he considers me an excellent arbiter (at least that's what I'm going to tell everyone if they ask!). In the post, Aagaard also discusses issues about the 'Zero Tolerance' rule.

 

In terms of my experience at the Olympiad, although I found everyone in the group of arbiters to be friendly & approachable, their levels of competence as arbiters seemed to vary greatly.

In terms of the things that needed to be done, the job of Match Arbiter at the Olympiad is in fact a fairly simple one. In terms of actual 'arbiting' work I had to do, I had very few instances of being required. The exceptions were:

* A player losing on time in an early round - as the arbiter I declared the game lost for him when I noticed his flag fall

* A disputed triple repetition claim - I simply went with the players to an area set aside for resolving such issue & sorted out the claim (it was correct)

* Quickly resetting the clocks for a game when the players had started with black's clock running & had pressed the clock before making any moves on the board (meaning the times displayed 1:31 each, rather than 1:30)

* Stopping the clocks when the commotion occurred in the final round surrounding the unfortunate death of Kurt Meier

Apart from these instances, my job consisted of setting the clocks prior to the matches, putting out scoresheets for the players, filling in the necessary paperwork for the matches, observing the games, completing the time check sheet every half hour, collecting the green player tags when they had finished their games, adding the results to the match sign as the games finished & tidying the match area up (mostly clearing empty bottles of water & coffee cups) when the match was finished. In other words, not particularly onerous or demanding.

 

Bearing all this in mind, I was surprised to see a number of things happen in my sector (let alone what may have occurred in any other sector).

* An arbiter noticed that the players in a game had a different number of moves on their scoresheets (I think one player had 31 moves, while the other had 34). This arbiter simply looked puzzled & did nothing about it. Thankfully for all involved, the game finished before move 40 (on either scoresheet!) & the result was decided on the board. What I would have done would be to compare the scoresheets without disturbing the players & once I had figured out the discrepancy, stop the clocks, inform the players of the issue & have them correct it while their clock was running (most likely it would be a player missing a few moves, though that might not be the only explanation).

* One arbiter who was often busy taking photos, particularly at the start of the round. I was next to them on a few occasions & was asked to watch their match for the first 10 or so minutes while they went & took photos around the playing hall.

* Arbiters not watching their boards - on one occasion I saw an arbiter talking with a FIDE official while there were still a number of games in progress in their match. The games were all in the 40-60 move range & at some stage these players would require new scoresheets (scoresheets had room for 60 moves per sheet). I noticed the arbiter's 'absence', so when one game reached move 58, I put new scoresheets next to the players to use. The arbiter returned when the players were on move 63 & I don't think they realised that the players were even on a second scoresheet, let alone how they got there!

* Scoresheets were also an issue with some arbiters - particularly when providing players with a second scoresheet. When doing this, I always try to make sure I do not disturb the players, so try to put new scoresheets next to their tables when they are writing down a move on their scoresheet so as to not break their train of thought (particularly if they are low on time). However such courtesy was not common amongst the arbiters at the Olympiad - new scoresheets were often almost thrown on the table while players were concentrating on their games (and on more than one occasion I saw this happen when a player had less than 30 seconds on their clock & was obviously stressed).

* A general lack of common sense from some arbiters. Periodically a member of the technical staff would come around & collect the blue scoresheets (scoresheets were in triplicate form - the top white sheet was the official game score, the green copy was retained by the players, while the blue copy went to the technical staff - presumably for any changes that may have been required to the DGT/PGN records) & on the first few times that this person came around, I noticed them writing the table & board number on the top of the sheets (eg: 18-2 for table 18, board 2), so I made sure to write the relevant numbers at the top of the blue sheets at the conclusion of each game. Other arbiters however did not notice this & often did not have the blue sheets ready for collection when the official came to their board. This simply delayed the official & from an observer's perspective looked unprofessional, with arbiters often fumbling around with scoresheets, folders & the like at the conclusion of games, rather than simply being able to discreetly hand the official the blue scoresheets without a fuss or creating any disturbance.

* Arbiters not knowing how to adjust the chess clocks. This was noticeable in the final round when many players left the hall with the final round medical commotion. One of the arbiters had not stopped the clocks on a game when the players left the arena, so had to add 10 minutes to one player's time. He was not confident in adding the time correctly to the clock, so asked another arbiter at a nearby table to help him adjust the clock ... and the arbiter said that they didn't know how to & to ask someone else! This happened on two other occasions before the arbiter in question asked me to help him with the clock (I was about 3 tables away from his match) ... and I was able to add the time & get the game restarted in less than 20 seconds. Given that the majority of arbiters at the Olympiad are International Arbiters (along with many FIDE Arbiters) I would have thought such a situation would be fairly trivial to solve ... but obviously not!

* Arbiters leaving their match in a mess. Although not strictly in the job description for the tournament, I always made sure to tidy up the playing area at the conclusion of the match - on most occasions there were a number of empty coffee cups, water bottles and some general rubbish left at the boards when a match concluded - so collected this rubbish & put it in the bin. A number of arbiters did not do this & left their match areas in a mess, presumably leaving it to some of the tournament volunteers to clean up at the end of the round.

 

I also managed to sneak into the background of a number of photos on the official site Chess24.com

 

 

 

All in all, I found being an arbiter at the Olympiad to be very eye-opening, both in terms of what is required at such a large international tournament (previously my biggest event I had been an arbiter at was the Doeberl Cup in Canberra), as well as the relative standards of other arbiters from around the world. Unlike other tournaments, in the Olympiad you have such a narrow focus as an arbiter that you can actually take notice of the actual chess being played! Given that I actually had an opportunity to look at some chess (and mostly high quality chess), I'm now looking forward to playing in some tournaments in the near future, as well as looking forward to the next Olympiad in Baku in 2016!



The Olympiad Trip - Home again

So I'm back in Melbourne after the Olympiad ... and already back to work!
After four flights - Tromso to Oslo, Oslo to London, London to Dubai & then Dubai to London - I've finally arrived home. Of course I now have to return to unpacking (both from the Olympiad trip, as well as my house generally, as I moved shortly before the Olympiad) & 'normal' life.
I mostly tried to get some sleep on the trip home, so did not watch many movies or shows on the return trip, so don't really have anything to add their, however it must be said that the sheer size of the A380 (the type of plane which I was on for the Melbourne>Dubai, Dubai>London, London>Dubai & Dubai>Melbourne legs of my trip) is staggering when compared to other planes!
Apart from the expected extra sleep to try to readjust to the change in time zones, the things that have struck me the most on my return are that my back is more sore than usual & that it takes quite a bit of adjusting to getting used to the lack of light of an evening (but thankfully it makes it much easier to get to sleep!).

I'm also planning to write a few more posts about the Olympiad & at this stage I am planning on writing about my Olympiad experience generally, the role of the Arbiter at the Olympiad, as well as examining some of the issues that have been mentioned about the Olympiad & my take on them.
I'm also planning on bringing something of my Olympiad experience to my chess coaching - I think the role of a chess coach, particularly at junior levels, is about inspiring the kids about chess, as much as it is about teaching them the techniques & methods for improving their game. Having said that, I'll need some time to put some things together (like tactical exercises from the event, photos from the tournament, souvenirs, etc), so doubt that will happen until next week.

Congratulations to Manuel Weeks, captain of the Australian Open team, who married Brigitta in Germany immediately after the Olympiad! Hopefully Manuel & Brigitta enjoy married life, as well as their honeymoon in the Barbados!

Manuel & Brigitta at their wedding (photo from Brigitta's Facebook page)
I wonder if the result of the Australian Open team will lead to any changes in the selection criteria for future Olympiads - the youth of the team seemed to be a big advantage, with Anton Smirnov's results being the standout of the team. Of course the other argument that could be made is that Anton is simply an outstanding talent & that is what lead to the excellent results, rather than the apparent 'youth' experiment. I suspect the status quo may remain, however there were issues with the selections this year (an appeal by John-Paul Wallace was somewhat surprisingly upheld - ultimately he was moved from second reserve to first reserve as a result), so there may be a change to the selection procedures, if not the criteria themselves.

The detailed results for the Australians can be seen on Chess Results:
Open Team
Women's Team

The Olympiad Trip - Day 18 (the long version)

The final day of the Olympiad started early – with an 11am start to the games, the bus from the hotel left at 8:30 - so there was little time to get sleep the night before, particularly with trying to get some of the packing out of the way.

Once I arrived at the venue, I found I was once again assigned to board 18, which had the Peru v Italy clash this round. On paper it should have been an interesting match, with Italy having about a 150 point advantage on board 1, with Fabiano Caruana playing Julio Granda Zuniga, while Peru had small (roughly 50 point) rating advantages on the other three boards. What eventuated was a massacre, with Peru clobbering Italy 3.5-0.5 … and Italy were lucky to scrape a draw on board 1! I can’t really split the games, so have included all four for Game of the Round!

 Board 18 Matchups for the final round

Boards ready for the players to arrive

Players ready for games to commence

Peru's board 1 Julio Granda Zuniga makes world number 3 Fabiano Caruana look like the lower rated player who struggles to hold a draw!


Board 2 Emilio Cordova turns a fairly equal looking major piece ending into a nice victory


Board 3 Jorge Cori starts slowly, but once his attack gets going, there's no stopping it



Board 4 sees Cristhian Cruz under some early pressure, but he defends well & then overwhelms his opponents with his pieces!



The unfortunate incident surrounding the passing of Karl Meier (mentioned in the previous brief post) deserves some explanation. According to Ian Rogers, Meier's face went red & the arbiter noticed this & went to get some medical attention. Another player also noticed this & ran across the room towards the medical area screaming 'MEDIC! MEDIC!'. The medical staff were quickly on the scene, but the commotion created concern amongst the otherwise very quiet playing hall. Some players & spectators moved towards the commotion to see what was happening & according to Kevin Bonham, at some point someone yelled out 'BOMB!' & this created havoc in the playing hall, with players, spectators & officials running for an exit. Seeing the likes of GM Michael Adams & other top chess players running past me as fast as they could was quite a sight! I stopped the clock of the remaining game (only the Granda Zunica v Caruana game was still in progress at my match) & noticed that the Australian team (who were playing on a nearby board) had just finished (Nisipeanu resigned against Illingworth just as the commotion began) & they were also moving towards the exits, so I joined them. However I only got a few steps when it was announced over the microphone that there was no need to panic, that medical staff were attending & that players should return to their boards. Games were to be restarted as soon as possible. Having said that, the hall was not quiet for the next 30 or so minutes while the medical staff & Ambulance that attended worked on Mr Meier, with the beep beep of the machinery echoing through the playing hall as the games resumed. Eventually although Granda Zuniga was a pawn ahead & pushing for the win, Caruana managed to create some threats against his king & the players repeated the position to finally draw the game.

After the match finished, I headed to the hotel for dinner & caught up with some Aussies on the way – Kevin Bonham (who had my FIDE Instructors card … complete with photo of Nik Stawski! Kevin had said that I looked different in the photo – now I knew why!), Ian Rogers & Junta Ikeda & talked about events of the day & the excellent performances of the Australian teams this Olympiad. I eventually got to the hotel for dinner & sat with Papua New Guineans Stuart Fancy & Shaun Press. As mentioned in the previous post, they talked a bit about Kurt Meier, but mainly discussed what they thought of the Olympiad overall. Shaun lamented the way that FIDE operates & how the system itself had huge obstacles to change, which made it difficult for the Kasparov ticket to get up in the first place. He also complained about how the General Assembly was largely pointless this year, with a quorum not being reached on two of the final days, so that no decisions could actually be made! This was caused by a number of countries being provided with incentives to send a team, along with a delegate who would make the appropriate vote in the Presidential election, however these nations (a number attending for the first time) had little or no interest in the meetings on other days, so simply did not bother turning up, leaving those who had attended frustrated by the situation.

After dinner it was off to the Closing Ceremony, again held at the Skarphallen on the other side of Tromso island. This seemed a bit smaller than the Opening Ceremony & did not seem to have the TV coverage that the Opening Ceremony had. There were speeches from FIDE President Kirson Ilyumzhinov, Tromso Major Jens Johan Hjort as well as a number of songs from a local Norwegian band throughout the evening. The main point of the evening was to award the various prizes for the Olympiad & they began with the Category prizes for both the Women's section & Open section. There were five categories in each tournament & they got the winning team up on stage to present them with their gold medals. One thing that did seem odd was that there was a Category A prize, which was effectively medals for 4th to 6th place! Next was the Board prizes for the Women's & Open sections, with the top 3 all presented with their medals on stage. Following this was the final presentations to the top three teams in the Open & Women's events, along with the Hamilton-Russell Cup & Vera Menchik Cup respectively. There was also a presentation to the best overall result, who received the Nona Gaprindashvili Cup, which was won by China, who won the Open division & finished second in the Women's division – a very impressive result indeed & arguably the crowning triumph of the 'Big Dragon Program' to develop Chinese Chess that was started in the mid 1970s by Dato Tan Chin Nam.

Finally there was a video showcasing Baku, the host of the 2016 Chess Olympiad, as well as the ceremonial handing over of the FIDE flag from the Mayor of Tromso to the head of the Organising committee for Baku.

Australian GM Ian Rogers was in the package of images from the tournament shown before the Closing Ceremony begam

Closing Ceremony ready to begin

FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov speaks

 The FIDE flag

 A local Norwegian band provided entertainment throughout the evening

 Mayor of Tromso Jens Johan Hjort speaks

Norwegian Flag

 

Women's section divisional winners

Open section divisional winners

Women's board prize winners

 Open board prize winners

 A jubilant China after winning the Open section

 Russia - Winners in the Women's section

 China - Overall winners

 Part of the Baku video package

 

The FIDE flag is handed over from Tromso to Baku

 

After such a long day, it was back to the accommodation to pack, before getting a fairly short sleep before the bus to the airport in the morning for the start of my flight home to Melbourne!

Late news: according to news online, another player died after the last round with Alisher Anarkulov from Uzbekistan, who played for the ICCD (Deaf) team, apparently found dead in his hotel room of natural causes on Thursday night. Another tragic death to close what was an otherwise memorable Chess Olympiad.

In a classy finish to the tragic news of Kurt Meier's passing, the game was recorded as a draw (as was his son's presumably unfinished game on board 1) at the venue, however that was later changed to be wins for both Kurt & Peter Meier in a wonderful gesture by their Rwandan opponents.

I'll post a full review of the Olympiad, including some discussion about some issues at the event at a later date, most likely once I am back in Australia (I'm posting this from London while in transit).