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Interview with FIDE VICE PRESIDENT Ignatius Leong  by Kostas Klokas

 

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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