19th September - 4th October 2010 - World Chess Olympiad, Khanty-Mansiysk, Siberia, RUSSIA
The New Zealand teams have been announced
Open
FM Smith, Robert FIDE 2274 NZCF 2357
FM Steadman, Michael FIDE 2252 NZCF 2335
FM Lukey, Stephen FIDE 2244 NZCF 2318
Han, Daniel FIDE 2200 NZCF 2233
Thornton Giovanni FIDE 2195 NZCF 2230
Team Captain Hilton Bennet
Women
WFM Milligan, Helen FIDE 1995 NZCF 2093
Chen, Eachen FIDE 1994 NZCF 1887
WIM Maroroa, Sue FIDE 1926 NZCF 2034
Fairley, Natasha FIDE 1777 NZCF 1844
Wu, Shirley FIDE 1763 NZCF 1871
Team Captain WFM Vivian Smith
Going by the players listed above it seems we have a JAFA explosion!
The women's team looks good but what has happened to New Zealand's top rated players.
No Grandmasters but ok we only have one and he is mostly retired.
But no International masters is the most shocking then then add Han at 18th and Thornton at 20th on the active rating list and the open team looks extremely weak compared to two years ago. Han and Thornton's inclusion is more a failure of other top players than an achievement for those too, but ok good on them for stepping up some one had to.
2 comments:
NZ's dream team is no doubt
GM Chandler
IM Wang
IM Ker
IM Dive
but sadly the current selection are the highest rated players that applied for the team. And there were even lower rated players that applied.
FM Steadman it should be noted is playing rather well including at the recent Wellington Open
Also interesting to note is this is FM Smith 12th time as a player on the NZ Team, the first time being 36 years ago ! I thought this must be a NZ record but his wife Vivian has been to 14 Olympiads as a player !
I'm certain we'll see a different open team in 2 years time when the venue is Istanbul. It seems that Siberia put the men off but not the women. 9 out of the top 10 applied. Maybe the women are made of stronger stuff :-)
Post a Comment