Olympiad

[NickFaulks]

The overwhelming crime of Istanbul 2012 was that we voted for a bid based on a venue in the centre of the city, evoking very pleasant memories of 2000, but found ourselves in hotels scattered in an industrial area around the airport.

Perhaps Ali Yazici's influence helped them to get away with this outrage, but in 2008 the Dresden Olympiad, promised for September ( when the weather there is very pleasant and accommodation correspondingly priced ) was moved to November, when there is sleet and snow, the discount airlines have stopped their flights because nobody wants to go and hotel rooms cannot be given away. I don't think Germany counted on any favours for political support.

[Chris Rice]

GM Jacob Aagard’s blog “A simple observation about FIDE politics” seems to concur with the general conclusion of this thread that the Tromso organiser’s prime motivation for the exclusions was one of money. http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/blog/?p=3036

Meanwhile the Norwegian press are portraying the letter from the Tromso organisers to FIDE as a complete climb down.

Chess Olympiad yields to FIDE July 21, 2014 newsinenglish.no

The organizers of the 41st World Chess Olympiad in Tromsø next month bowed to pressure from the World Chess Federation (FIDE) on Monday, and agreed to allow entry to teams who missed the sign-up deadline. Last week FIDE threatened to cancel the event or move it to Russia when the Tromsø 2014 organizers refused to budge on the late entries.

The organizers did not want to let 10 national teams compete who failed to sign up by June 1. FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov approved the late registrations, which included the reigning women’s champions from Russia. But organizers controversially refused to follow Ilyumzhinov’s edict, said they’d adhered to FIDE’s own regulations, and it would cost too much money to add the latecomers to the program.

The president wrote an open letter to the event holders late last week that was published on FIDE’s website, demanding the excluded teams get to participate, reported Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK). “As FIDE president I will in the strongest appeal the olympiad organizing committee’s recent decisions and behaviour,” Ilyumzhinov wrote. He threatened to invoke rule 6.1 which allows him to overrule all contracts, including national federations’ own rules.

“We’re giving into the demands, but we still do not agree,” Tromsø 2014 director Børge Robertsen told on Monday. “We have record enrollments, and have needed to adhere to the rules FIDE has set. But now we see that all would be better served if everyone gets to come.” He said they’d discuss with FIDE the economic impacts of letting the 10 extra teams compete.

As well as the Russian women, teams from Cambodia, the Central African Republic, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Oman, Pakistan, Senegal and Afghanistan would now be allowed to participate.

“I think it is totally the right decision,” said NRK’s chess expert, Torstein Bae. “A considerable part of the point of the event is that you gather the whole world into this kind of competition, so it would be a shame if because of a deadline you missed so many countries.”

[Kevin Thurlow]

"Only those bidders who really are able to accommodate all the teams who wish to come. Is that such a bad thing?"

Norway may have made some mistakes - that's natural enough in a big event. Are you saying that FIDE have behaved in an exemplary manner?

[Stewart Reuben]

FIDE have not done at all badly regarding the Olympiads most years. It is a big event for a small worldwide organisation. The problems have been with the local organisations. 2006, 2008, 2012 and now 2014 have all been marred - but not by FIDE.

[MartinCarpenter]

If you're having problems with the local organisers that often, it seems likely that there's some more systemic problem too It certainly doesn't look like they make it easy for them, but I don't suppose an event of this sort of size would ever be problem free.

[NickFaulks]

2006, 2008, 2012 and now 2014 have all been marred - but not by FIDE.

I think you're being a bit too kind. FIDE has consistently allowed itself to be fobbed off with stories that everything was going to be all right long after it was clear that things were going badly wrong. Quality of accommodation in 2006, charter flights in 2010, hotel rooms, visas and taxes in 2014. When Dresden said they were moving the 2008 Olympiad to November, FIDE could and should have said "oh, no, you're not". Ditto the move in 2012 from the centre of Istanbul to an industrial area many miles away.

[Chris Rice]

Let's go back four years for a delicious irony....

http://barentsobserver.com/en/sections/ ... s-olympiad

[Chris Rice]

I'd be quite interested to know what FIDE have done for Tromso besides relieving them of 1.1 million euros. http://www.fide.com/images/stories/NEWS ... ex_17B.pdf

In addition, the Tromso bidding documents look pretty comprehensive. Isn't there a scouting report on the venues that bid for Olympiads? On the social media I saw that Nigel Freeman was preparing a report on the proposed South African bid for the next Olympiad although I did also note he went to the wrong city initially a few days ago.

http://www.chessdom.com/news-2010/norwa ... s-olympiad

[Christopher Kreuzer]

There is a reason the IOC send teams in to produce reports and make sure things are going OK with the bids that have been awarded Summer or Winter Olympics. FIDE should do the same, and identify problems well in advance. If the same problems keep coming up, that is FIDE not learning from previous problems. (Yes, I know FIDE are very small compared to the IOC.)

[Roger de Coverly]

I
In addition, the Tromso bidding documents look pretty comprehensive.

It concentrates on the positive as one might expect. It glosses over a couple of important risk factors
(1) what if more teams enter than outlined in the proposal? That's particularly relevant if additional hotel space is likely to be in short supply.
(2) what if visa rules are taken outside of the control of the organisers or even the National Government?

There was a long run of Olympiads in Schengen countries from 2002 to 2008, with only the final one in Dresden running into publicised visa difficulties. But the EU have now made it much more complicated to obtain visas where these are required, so this is a potential problem for any world event in an EU country.

[NickFaulks]

In addition, the Tromso bidding documents look pretty comprehensive. Isn't there a scouting report on the venues that bid for Olympiads? On the social media I saw that Nigel Freeman was preparing a report on the proposed South African bid for the next Olympiad although I did also note he went to the wrong city initially a few days ago.

Bids often look convincing with four years to go, but FIDE have been lamentably poor at keeping on top of the organisers as costs overshoot, corners are cut and deadlines are missed. I'm happy to see that Nigel Freeman is getting involved in 2018 at an early stage.

In case others, like me, have not seen the social media you mention, what happened was that Freeman learned just before he left Athens that the South Africans had changed their minds about the venue. David Jarrett was already in the air, and discovered this when he arrived in Cape Town, to be told that he had to go to Durban. This is from last Wednesday.

http://chesswesternprovince.co.za/fide- ... -olympiad/

[Chris Rice]

Thanks Nick for the clarification on the next Olympiad working party. Wonder why they changed? Sure we'll hear more later. Anyway currently and as suspected we're not out of the woods yet as Illyumzhinov fires another open letter to the Tromso organisers on the visa issue:
http://www.fide.com/images/stories/NEWS ... mittee.pdf

Oh yeah and just found out the transfer fee for Lagno from Ukraine to Russia was 20,000 euros. That's extraordinary, how can that be justified? Is it some form of compensation to the Ukrainians?

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Somehow I suspect the Norwegians (while being as helpful as they can) won't budge on this. Given that the Norwegians have already made some concessions, Kirsan and FIDE may be a bit stuck and have to accept some of the visa problems either won't get resolved or will require lots of efforts by individuals to get the visas in time.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Oh yeah and just found out the transfer fee for Lagno from Ukraine to Russia was 20,000 euros. That's extraordinary, how can that be justified? Is it some form of compensation to the Ukrainians?

Really? Where did you hear that? On this page it (currently) says 5000 Euros:

http://ratings.fide.com/fedchange.phtml?year=2014

Code: Select all

14109336	 Lagno, Kateryna	RUS	UKR	2014-07-11	2014-03-07
Last FIDE event:	Women`s FIDE Grand Prix Series Khanty-Mansiysk 2014
Citizenship:	UKR
Date of eligibility to participate
in the FIDE events under the new flag	2014-07-12
Transfer fee	Euro 5000
Date starting from which a player
can represent the new federation fee free	2016-07-12

[Chris Rice]

Mark Crowther is the source on TWIC http://www.theweekinchess.com/html/twic1028.html (see first section on Introduction) although he hasn't said where he got the info.