The opening Ceremony has been held and everyone is ready for the first round. The pairings were been made available last night and we can only imagine that across Batumi, many players spend their Monday morning in front of their laptops, preparing for their first game.
For the teams that have been ranked at the lower end – round 1 is the opportunity to play against some of the greats. For example, the women’s New Zealand team, will play India in round 1. The Ugandan Open teams plays against Russia, and the Women’s team from Tajikistan plays against power house Russia. Those opportunities don’t come along very often!
The Australian Open team, ranked 41st in the opening standings, will play against Qatar in round 1, while the Australian Women’s team will play against United Arab Emirates (UAE). Those facts in itself are not super interesting, it is when you dig a little deeper that you find some amazing stories.
For example, the women’s team from UAE is one of the youngest playing teams in the tournament, with a 15, 16 and a 9 year old! Alserkal will most likely be the youngest competitor of the Olympiad. However, she is not the only player that is not a teenager yet; Rishon Bastienne from Seychelles is only 11 years old. We will be keen to catch up with them during the tournament. For now they have a rest for round 1.
Another interesting fact is that 17 year old Polina Karelina from the Bahamas is one of the very few two women playing in the Open category.
Another team we will be watching is Uganda. Our connection with this country is through our Rotary membership, where the Rotary Fellowship of Chess has been setting up chess programs at schools with the assistance of fellow Rotarian Christopher Major and the Ugandan board 2 player WFM Christine Namaganda. On board 4 there is 17 year old Gloria, who we will introduce to you later in the tournament.
On board 1 they have the one and only Queen of Katwe playing! I am sure you have all seen the amazing Disney movie about a Ugandan girl, following her dreams through chess!
In the Open category, the Iranian team is one to watch – not only has this country been smashing it at the last few World Youth Championships, their team is ranked 22nd and three of their players are under the age of 18.
So what do we think will happen over the next 11 rounds?
We expect the US to take out gold in the Open for a second time in a row. It is hard to compete with top players like World Champion challenger Fabiano Caruano, Wesley So, Hikaru Nakamaru and current US champion Sam Shankland. However, Russia, China and India are certainly going to give them a challenge to the top. Countries like Azerbaijan and Iran are also very likely to end up in the top 10.
In the Women’s category, the top positions will be dominated by Russia, China, Ukraine and India. Will the hometown advantage be enough for Georgia to take out another Olympiad? We think it is very likely!
We will of course be watching Australia very closely, as well as our friendly neighbours New Zealand. The battles fought by Australia will be fierce and they may end up slightly higher than their starting rank. So stay tuned for all the action!
