14 Jul 2014

The chairperson of Botswana National Sports Council (BNSC), Solly Reikeletseng has cautioned Botswana Chess Federation (BCF) leadership to guard against opportunistic interference by some people. 

Speaking at the Morongwa Individual Chess Championships finals played in Gaborone over the weekend (July 12-13), Reikeletseng said the leadership should remain strong and resolute against people who had some ulterior motives to cause disturbances within the federation.

Already, there were talks that some affiliates had written to BCF president, Tshenolo Maruatona demanding that he step down.

However, he applauded the federation for its commitment to develop young talent at grassroots levels as evidenced by the Morongwa Individual chess tournament that attracted children aged between five to 16 years.

Reikeletseng said young people deserved to be given a chance as well as protection as they were the future sports champions of the country adding that BNSC would provide support by increasing resources in the next financial year. 

On the other hand, he said for BCF to grow, the federation should also mount more workshops for teachers and athletes. He said chess was one of the codes that had done extremely well adding that chess was now being recognised as a sport and not a game. 

Meanwhile, BCF president Maruatona said the federation would workshop its affiliates on the review of the new FIDE rules which came into effect beginning of July before implementing those rules. 

He said BCF had shifted its interest and focus onto young people by developing them at grassroots level adding that next year, BCF would send a team of young players to the World Youth Chess championships in South Africa in September this year. 

He said the team has already been selected and it would be trained prior to the tournament. Maruatona further stated BCF would in August this year also send the senior national team to the Olympiad in Tromso, Normay and pleaded with BNSC to assist with the funding.

Also, he pointed out that the federation on the other hand has embarked on a fund raising campaign to argument its finances. For his part, Morongwa Security operations manager, Tawanda Watura said the company was happy to be at the helm of grassroots development of Chess in Botswana and that its partnership with BCF was worthwhile.

Watura said the company with a clearly defined growth strategy, was proud to be associated with chess as a game of strategy adding that in the modern day business, there was a lot of competition and there were many players with different strategies and strengths.

Meanwhile, the finals were attended by over 120 young chess players who displayed good performance at the qualifiers held in February 2014 in Francistown and Lobatse for the Northern and Southern Regions respectively.

A total of seven rounds with a time control of 30minutes per player (rapid) was played. Top 10 boys and 10 girls from the tournament qualified for the Senior Individual Chess Championships Finals that will be held in Gaborone in August 2014. 

Goldmine Junior Secondary School dominated the tournament with Sethebe Susan and Mbaki Sonny winning gold medals in the girls and boys categories respectively. The duo won trophies and chess boards.

The primary school categories saw Marape Marape of Baobab English Medium Primary School winning the boys category while Onneetse Rankwane of Our Lady of the Desert Primary School won the girls category. They won gold medals and chess boards.

The tournament is held with support received from Morongwa Security which has been supporting the federation for the past four years with funds channelled towards prizes for Junior Individual, Junior Teams and Senior Individual Finals. 

The federation used the event to establish training needs of Junior Schools Chess players for a coaching clinic that is hosted annually in November. ENDS