Africa-Press – Namibia. Maurice Kambukwe
The Namibia national chess team delivered master moves to progress to Division 3 of the ongoing 2021 World Chess Federation (FIDE) Online Chess Olympiad held over the weekend. Action will continue this coming weekend as the Namibians eye qualification to Division 2.
The chess Olympiad is a worldwide online international competition in which hundreds of participants from more than 100 different countries compete for top honours. The event started on Friday and will run until 15 September on FIDE’s chess.com site.
This past weekend saw Namibia competing in Division 4, which consisted of teams with the lowest federation performance ranking, and emerged from a pool of 12 teams to secure a spot in Division 3, which takes place this weekend.
Namibia won nine of their 11 matches played. For this weekend’s Division 3, a total of 10 teams will be divided into five pools and each pool will play in a round-robin system over nine rounds, with the top three teams from each pool qualifying to Division 2.
Speaking to New Era Sport yesterday, Namibia Chess Federation president Charles Eichab, who is also competing, said he was impressed with the way the team performed over the weekend, urging them to again go out full force and book their place in Division 2.
“It was a great performance from the team. Everyone on the team is hungry to win and that’s what we want at this point. We are looking forward to replicating the same performance this coming weekend,” he said.
The team:
Open
Goodwill Khoa
Eichab
Open Reserves
CM Mclean Handjaba
Bernhard Schwarz
Women
Lishen Mentile
Nicola Tjaronda
Women Reserves
Maria Niilenge
Lure Horn
U20 Open
Manfredo Gaoseb
Reserve:
Henry Gaiseb
U20 Girl
Keisha-Cathriona van Wyk
Reserve: Jamie-Nicole Beukes
Team captain:
Milton Eiseb
