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Interview with FIDE VICE
PRESIDENT Ignatius Leong by Kostas Klokas |
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KK. You have been chief arbiter in the Olympiad in
Spain. So, please tell me your opinion about the level of the
organization of this world youth championships.
IL. It is really one of the best organization ever happened. The
airport schedules, the facilities and most of all the place where the
tournament is held in. Creta Maris hotel is really wonderful both for
this great building where the games are played and all the surroundings.
The rooms are wonderful and the placement too. In Spain unfortunately
the whole organization had a lot of problems.
KK. And it was also this incident with FIDE Vice
President Mr. Azmaiparashvili
IL. This terrible incident had really shocked the chess community
around the world and the whole story is a big. But, before this incident
the organization had many problems. I think that this wasn’t known.
KK. Here, in Greece we had learnt it because of a
Greek reporter that was in Majorca and was sending reports about the
complaints that the players had.
IL. I didn’t know that you had information; I thought that it wasn’t
known in general. Here, for example there is a lot of respect for the
staff working for the organization. Wonderful big rooms for the chief
arbiter, bulletin’s room, press room and free internet access for the
players and the visitors. In Spain, my colleagues in the Pairing
Committee and myself as chief arbiter had a very small room where only 2
tables could enter!
KK. So, you can say that you weren’t so satisfied
from the organization of the Olympiad?
IL. No, I’m saying that I am dissatisfied from it, not just little
satisfied.
KK Do you believe that it would be nice to
organize an Olympiad in Greece?
IL. Of course, it would be nice if it would be done at a place with
similar conditions with this World Youth Championships.
KK. Since when you are responsible for the
academies of FIDE?
IL. I have been in this position only for 5 years, so it’s rather new
field for me. The academies aren’t new because I have been working on it
many years. In general, I’ve been working over chess organization themes
for over than 30 years.
KK. Please, tell me some keys points of these five
years in the academies.
IL. The number one part is to enter into the schools. There is
nothing more important than this. If you have a massive spread of chess
then you are able to create academies. The children when young must have
the possibility to come in close contact with chess. And depending on
their interest to decide how intensively they want to deal with it.
KK. Another key point?
IL. A second very important factor on the academies are the teachers.
At first, I brought in the academies teachers from Asia, after that I
brought ex-soviet teachers and in general I combine different “schools”
of chess. My trainers create all the teaching manuals. I determine the
size of each class. Which and how many pupils are suitable for a class.
There must be no more than 12 in every class. I also work hard for the
right chemistry between teacher and pupil and for this reason there are
many times that I move a child from a trainer to another because another
trainer may be more suitable. I try always to explain to the trainers my
decision to switch their students as the decision is not personal but it
is according to the needs of each individual student.
KK. Tell me some important initiative that you
have done and gave your results these 5 years.
IL. I’m coming from Singapore where there is no chess tradition. So,
the state didn’t help much in something that there wasn’t any previous
success. But the children didn’t have much opportunity to play for their
country in an international event. Only very few played in the national
team. So that’s why I started an initiative in 2000 in Vietnam where the
first Southeast Asian Youth Championships were organized –something like
your Balkan championship- after trying so hard for it. I’ve been making
trips to the neighboring countries but the most difficult was to
convince mine. After the first one that went very well, everybody was
saying that it will fade out and it won’t be repeated, but here we are
now where these championships still growing year by year even more
entries. In 2000 Singapore had 48 participants while in 2003 in Brunei,
there were more than eighty. This was very important because it gave the
opportunity to the children to achieve some remarkable successes. So
after that, the state supported the winners with lessons and by having
close contact with them, checking weekly their progress during a
semester period.
KK. The last years the level of the Asiatic chess
has grown fast. Do you believe that this has a connection with
Viswanathan Anand’s exploitation?
IL. No, I don’t believe so. Anand first became a GM in around 1988
where these players, which now play in the national team of India,
already, existed. India has a lot of tradition in chess and had started
creating strong players for a long time now. I believe that in
comparison to China where people have 3 kind of mind games (Go, Chinese
chess and chess) in India chess in the only one. That’s why we see that
the chess of China is a little bit stagnant. I believe that India had
prepared a whole generation of strong players and the role of Anand was
to give more inspiration and impulse to an already scheduled process.
KK. Thank you very much for sharing with me your
opinions.
IL. You are more than welcome. |
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