20 Aug 2017

Gaborone mayor, Kagiso Thutlwe says he is confident that the chess team will surpass its last two performances and bring more titles and medals from the Africa Schools Chess Championships slated for Zimbabwe.

Speaking at the send-off ceremony of the 18 member team in Gaborone last Thursday, Thutlwe said he expected the team to raise the bar as the defending champions.

“As a country, we are proud to have been the initiators of this event. Three years ago Botswana was the maiden host and I am happy to say we did not only host the event, but dominated with an impressive medal tally,” he said.

The mayor urged players to be ambassadors of the game.

“Of late we have seen our athletes shining at international platforms, our athletics team in particular has pronounced itself firmly in the international stage, we are now a country of winners and I implore the team to carry on with the same tempo,” the mayor said.

He implored the team to embrace the principle of Botho and the spirit of sportsmanship in their quest for victory.

“We are putting our hopes on you that you will make us proud for you are the crème de la crème of Africa,” he said.

BCF president, Mothokomedi Thabano said the country had never been fortunate like it was today as over the years it relied on local players to coach and prepare the team but this year the federation through the assistance of FIDE acquired the services of grandmaster Nikolay Chadaev to train the team.

“With the grandmaster training our children we are going to white wash our opponents,” he said.

Team captain, Susan Sethebe promised the nation that they were going to use the skills they learnt from the grandmaster to improve results.

“For the past two weeks, we have been in an intense training camp with the grandmaster, and we are going to use the skills we acquired from him to improve our results and win medals and titles,” she said.

FIDE president, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov said their target was to have one billion chess players in the world.

“Our target is to have one billion chess players across the globe, like we always say, ‘one billion chess players, one billion clever people’,” he said.

He said his wish was to see the game of chess introduced in all schools in Botswana.  ENDS