Egyptian men's and Algerian women's teams were capable of defending their gold medals from 2003 in the African team chess competition that recently concluded in Algiers, Algeria.

Although chess became part of the All-Africa Games (African Olympics) only in 2003 the tournament is the only African team event (the Continental Championship hasn't been played for quite a while) and also the World Team Championship qualifier. Due to time shortages this is rapid chess tournament.

There was no surprise in men's event, which was a 13 team round-robin. Mighty Egyptian team led by IM El-Gindy won 11 matches and drew one to take first place (40/48). South Africa came second and Zambia were third, as in 2003.

There women's top three from previous Games changed by no means: Algeria (led by H.Toubal) took gold, while South Africa finished as runners-up. Nigeria won third spot. Botswana, who produced pathetic 0/36 at recent World Team Championship came in fourth place. Egpyt, the newcomers, gave remarkable start, i.e. beating South Africa 3-1, to deny their dreams about gold.

The 10th All-Africa Games are due in Lusaka, Zambia in 2011. Chess will most probably be the part of the games too.

The organisation and the coverage was very bad. The web site is not very legible and unstable. There are no game scores anywhere (can anybody help maybe?). Also, there is really very little information on the issue.

OlimpBase result& info pages: men, women

9th All-Africa Games home page

The Chess Drum blog - 2007 All-Africa Games topic