Kuumar Shyam (Abu Dhabi)
The 100th-anniversary celebrations of chess, being organised by the world body FIDE, will make its final stop in Abu Dhabi on Thursday before ending the global journey in Budapest, Hungary next month.
The climax to the centennial celebrations couldn't be any more symbolic of the past, present and future. The latter category is where the city of Abu Dhabi comes in as a choice venue in FIDE's celebration plans as it has become the capital of global sporting events, enhancing its position, especially after winning the bid to host the 2028 World Chess Olympiad.
Viswanthan Anand, chess legend, Indian grandmaster and five-time world champion, will be attending the event, and so will be dignitaries from regional chess bodies as well as celebrated players from the Gulf region. Presidents of the Federations of UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and Bahrain are all touted to be present.
FIDE started 100 years back in Paris and marked the start of an Olympic Torch Relay from the French capital during the Paris Olympics where the world body officials also visited the UAE's Olympic House situated nearby.
On Wednesday, FIDE chief Arkady Dvorkovich was in Tbilisi, Georgia, with the torch and will arrive on Thursday in the UAE Emirate, where the 30th Abu Dhabi International Chess Festival, the largest gathering of players – amateurs to professional title players – is under way at two hotels on the Corniche. A record number of over 2,200 chess players from 82 different countries are participating.
The torch launch ceremony will be held at 5:30pm at Marina Mall, under the slogan “The World is One Family”. Abu Dhabi will be the last stop on the relay before it arrives in Budapest next month, coinciding with the launch of the 2024 Chess Olympiad.
Hungary is hosting the 45th FIDE Chess Olympiad and the 95th FIDE Congress in mid-September. Hungary gave home to the first unofficial Chess Olympiad for teams in 1926 and won the first two official editions in 1927 and 1928, respectively. Abu Dhabi will be hosting the 47th Olympiad, thus completing the perfect end game to mark a nostalgic run while looking to the future.
The world chess body selected 12 cities from across the world from the five continents to share the celebrations, namely Auckland, New Delhi, Astana, Bucharest, Bern, Paris, Casablanca, Accra, Quebec, Toronto, Medellin.
As a representative of the Asian continent, Abu Dhabi, New Delhi and Astana were chosen to be part of the festivities. The celebrations include the torch relay, which began in India, the historical home of chess, and is ending in Budapest.
The torch relay will be accompanied by a photo exhibition that will talk about the history of chess and the diversity of chess practitioners, as well as an exhibition match for the World Youth
Champion and the African and Arab Champion, Grandmaster Ahmed Al Adli, against 15 players at the same time.