Wednesday 14 September 2016

2016 Chess Olympiad - Round 11

(Brief report)
With the USA and Ukraine winning their last round matches, the USA has won the 2016 Chess Olympiad on count back as both teams tied on 20 points. Russia finished out right third on 18.
Australia had one of its best results in the Swiss era, tying for 25th after beating The Philippines to score 14 points. Of the other Oceania countries New Zealand scored 10, Guam finished with 8, and Fiji, PNG and Palau all scored 6.
In the Women's event China won with 20 points. Australia won its last round match to finish on 11, with New Zealand 10, Fiji 6 and Guam 6.

(A longer report will appear in the next day or two, after my 2 day journey home is complete)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I know everyone has been positive, but the performance of the ladies was really poor over the past few events, and needs to be looked at internally. Maybe trying a new coach for the next olympiad?

Anonymous said...

It is true that the women's team has performed poorly at Olympiad's recently, with the exception of Tromso when they where decent. 3/5 of the women this year have played in numerous Olympiad's but have mostly performed below rating, and their overall rating has not improved over the years.

Changing coach would not do anything, it is the state of women's chess in Australia that is the problem.
Looking at the men's team, their is fresh young talent and for the past 3 Olympiad's have performed well above rating, most notably Anton Smirnov who keeps getting better and better each year. The selections for the next Open Olympiad team will be difficult, but probably not so much for the women's.