CHENNAI, 18 Apr: The 100-day countdown for the 44th Chess Olympiad, to be held here later this year, began on Monday with the legendary Viswanathan Anand terming the tournament a life-time opportunity for youngsters to catch a glimpse of their idols.
\n\u201cIt is a lifetime opportunity for youngsters to get a glimpse of their idols, watch them play and possibly interact with them,\u201d said India\u2019s first-ever Grandmaster Anand in a press release.
\nThe Olympiad will be held from July 28 to August 10.
\n\u201cThe Countdown to the #ChessOlympiad2022 begins! #100daystogo and to mark the occasion find me on livestream looking at some games of the past Chess Olympiads,\u201d Anand said in a tweet.
\nSeveral other players including women\u2019s star D Harika and noted coach R B Ramesh tweeted about the countdown.
\n\u201cAnd the countdown begins. Just 100 more days to go for the grand #FIDECHESSOLYMPIAD2022 to take place in India,\u201d Harika said.
\nMeanwhile, All India Chess Federation (AICF) secretary Bharat Singh Chauhan said, \u201cWe are sparing no effort to ensure that this Olympiad will be the best ever and hope that people will be talking about it for the next 100 years.\u201d
\nSeveral Grandmasters and national champions from more than 150 countries will be participating in the Chess Olympiad.
\nHundreds of district-level players from Tamil Nadu have already put in their requests to witness the games live and soon the fever will catch up in the whole country, the release said.
\nThe Olympiad was originally scheduled to be hosted by Russia between July 26 and August 8 in Moscow but was moved out following the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in February.
\nSubsequently, FIDE (world chess body) allotted the championship to Chennai.
\nThe last chess event of such stature to come to India was the 2013 World Championship clash between Anand and Magnus Carlsen, the current world No. 1. (PTI)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CHENNAI, 18 Apr: The 100-day countdown for the 44th Chess Olympiad, to be held here later this year, began on Monday with the legendary Viswanathan Anand terming the tournament a life-time opportunity for youngsters to catch a glimpse of their idols. \u201cIt is a lifetime opportunity for youngsters to get a glimpse of their idols, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-189129","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189129\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}