Only two weeks after Vishy Anand became World Champion in Bonn, we are going to witness another big chess event in Germany. The start of the 38th Chess Olympiadhas been given at the opening ceremony in Dresden today. The hall looked impressive, full of representatives of a record number of participating nations and a crowd of journalists.

Very similar to the Beijing Olympics model, the Olympiad in Dresden started at 8:08. One after the other on the scene came singers, cheerleaders, ice skaters, drum bangers, and many more performances. Every country in the Dresden Olympiad was represented by German school children in the Opening Ceremony. All of the children who carried the flags and country names are chess players who qualified to be at the opening ceremony through a series of tournaments.

The FIDE President Kirsan Ilymzhinov could not attend the opening ceremony. As many Russian sources informed his car was involved into a car accident on the way to the airport. The reports state that Mr. Ilymzhinov did not suffer important injuries. The Chessdom team wishes him a fast recovery.

/ taken from www.chessdom.com website /

Official results site
Mig Greengard's The Daily Dirt Chess Blog
All ChessBase.com reports
Download Olympiad TV viewer. It's free!
The Chess Drum. Black players at the Olympiad

by Zac last @ 19 Nov 2008 03:05 am

If women can play in the men's team event in the Chess Olympiad, can men likewise participate in the women's team event? It would certainly make headlines if a team of men participated and came home with the women's team event.