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Politics rears its ugly head only too often in international competition and chess has never been exempt. In 1976 the Soviet Government would not allow its country's chess teams to play in Israel and this boycott naturally extended to all the satellite countries. Worse still than the actual boycott was the attempt by Libya to organize a rival event, dubbed the "Against Israel Olympiad" in most of the pre-tournament publicity but called the "Against Chess Olympiad" on the emblem which appears in the programme of the Libyan tournament. None of the world's strong chess countries sent a team to Tripoli.
The Arabs-proper attended a "counter Olympiad" held at exactly the same time as the official FIDE Olympiad in Haifa. But the Arabs were certainly not missed as far as chess ability is concerned! The Tripoli "Olympiad" attracted 38 teams (no communists though, but there were gossips USSR might take part) including some FIDE members, like Portugal, Italy (who were in fact represented by the Palermo Chess Club), Malta, Turkey or the Philippines. The Philippines, Italy and Uruguay were the only nations to have appeared both in Haifa and Tripoli. The Uruguayan team was made up of political dissidents, who happened to be competent chess players, and were escaping from the military dictatorship in their home country. Their first board, Lincoln Maiztegui Casas became one of Uruguay's leading journalists many years later. In order to attract as many nations and players as possible to Libya Colonel Gathafi offered full fares and accommodation to all the teams and captains. Each team had its own car and driver and each team member received $8 a day. It is understandable then that certain smaller developing countries sent their people to Tripoli, but looking at the list of competing players the standard of games was obviously very low (no GMs and just a few IMs). FIDE authorities decided to appoint a commission to investigate the event, with special attention to the future FIDE status of the entries there.
El Salvador were definitely not among the favourites and they were quite surprised to find themselves at the top of the table. The Salvadori led by 17-year-old Boris Pineda took early lead after 4-0 vs Dutch Antilles and 3½-½ vs Morocco and hold the gold medal positions until the end despite of two 1½-2½ defeats. Tunisia with IM Bouaziz at top board easily took second place, perhaps a little bit disappointing for them yet they beat the champions in a direct clash. Pakistan lead by IM Farooqi fought hard to take the bronze. The host nation were awfully disappointed to lie down in 24th place. Uruguay might have done much better hadn't they only lost three matches (12 games) by default due to being late.
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