No Russia at Women's Olympiad

[Miroslav Stefanovic]

Re: Olympiad in danger of being cancelled??

Also, Kasparov's answer:

Garry Kasparov on the threat to Tromsø
Why must it be that chessplayers always suffer for the errors and arrogance of officials and bureaucrats? It is a shame for any team to miss out on the Olympiad for technical reasons out of the players’ control. I am a candidate to be a president of FIDE who represents all the federations, not only potential medal winners from powerful federations. But of course the Russian women’s team is not just any team. The Olympic champions! So of course all the attention is on their exclusion, because it is a tragedy not only for the players, but also for the organizers and the fans.

I cannot explain the bizarre statements of FIDE vice-president Israel Gelfer. What would I or the Norwegian organizers have to gain from excluding the celebrated Russian women’s team? And he wants to cancel the Olympiad in retaliation? Punish 175 teams for the mistakes of one? Such absurd arrogance! This matter does not involve me or my campaign for FIDE president. This is a transparent attempt to look for excuses and scapegoats for a self-inflicted disaster. The Russian Federation’s statement doesn’t address the obvious question of why they didn’t submit their women’s team on time, as they did with the men’s team. It’s obvious they were waiting for Lagno’s transfer to strengthen their team and intentionally allowed the registration deadline to pass to do so. Would permitting this devious maneuver be fair to all the other teams that followed the rules and registered on time?

http://en.chessbase.com/post/garry-k...hreat-to-troms

[Lee Hendon]

Re: Olympiad in danger of being cancelled??

Figure they should let the Russian women's team and the other 9 possible nations play
as long as they cover 10,500 Euros themselves. A kind of late fee

[Wayne Komer]

Re: Olympiad in danger of being cancelled??

According to Itar-Tass the list of teams excluded from the 2014 Olympiad is:

Men: Cambodia, Central African Republic, Gabon, Côte d’Ivoire, Oman, Pakistan, Senegal

Women: Russia, Afghanistan

So great are the public's sympathies with Afghanistani ladies, that you could probably get the whole entry fee by donations in one day.

[Paul Bonham]

Re: Olympiad in danger of being cancelled??

The Russian Chess Federation Hits Back

July 17, 2014

Norwegian organizers are trying to hold the Olympics without Olympic champions

RCF is ready to appeal the decision in court

The official website of the World Chess Olympiad in Tromsø, Norway published an open letter addressed to the Executive Director of FIDE Nigel Freeman saying that the team did not confirm their participation before June 1, 2014 and will not be allowed to participate. Under these unprecedented sanctions the Russian women's team, winner of the last two World Chess Olympiads (Khanty-Mansiysk in 2010 and Istanbul 2012) will miss playing in this one.

Russian Chess Federation informs you that in full accordance with paragraph 3.6.1 of the Rules of Chess Olympiad RCF promptly sent a request for participation of the male and female national teams - before April 1, 2014.

In April it was reported that the Norwegian side was having serious financial difficulties of the Olympic Games. The situation remained uncertain for a long time, it took the intervention of FIDE, and only on the 5th of June did the Organizing Committee officially announce that the competition would be held in Tromso on the previously announced dates (1-14 August 2014). In this situation, it is insufficient to require the national chess federations strict compliance with paragraph 3.7.1, under which they are required to submit a detailed list of the players and members of the delegation until June 1.

RCF draws attention to the fact that there are no penalties for failure to comply with paragraph 3.7.1 in the Rules. Moreover, paragraph 3.7.2 states that allowed late check-player or member of the delegation - even 20 hours before the start is possible with an extra charge of 100 euros for a player or a member of the delegation.

July 7, 2014 Olympics organizing committee sent RCF an account for the registration of 10 players, two attendants, the two team captains, two coaches and the head of delegation (of 17 people) in the amount of CZK 13,600. This account of the Russian Chess Federation has been paid.

In connection with the foregoing, the RCF claims that the organizing committee has no legal grounds to ban Russian women's team to participate in the Olympics in Tromso. RCF refers to FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who in accordance with paragraph 6.1 of the Rules of the Olympics has the right to make the final decision on all matters relating to the Olympics as a whole, and asks to allow Russian women's team to participate in the Olympics. At the same time, the RCF is ready to appeal the decision of the organizing committee Olympics in court.

http://ruchess.ru/news/all/norvezhsk...ih_chempionok/

Why are people getting away with referring to the Olympiad as the "Olympics"? Isn't that word reserved for use by the IOC for the real and actual Olympic Games (summer and winter)?

Even later in this thread, Garry Kasparov refers to the Russian Women's Team as "Olympic champions". The IOC is usually very strict about allowing use of the words "Olympic" or "Olympics". This could be flirting with legal disaster for FIDE, which could conceivably even be forced to abandon use of the term "Olympiad" because it leads to this misuse of the Olympics term.

On the other hand, maybe the IOC is asleep at the wheel.

[Nigel Hanrahan]

Re: Olympiad, Olympics, and language

You're right about the mis-use of "Olympics"; I think it's just sloppiness. However, in regard to "Olympiad" we have ...

The English term is still often used popularly to indicate the [Olympic]games themselves, a usage that is strictly erroneous (as an Olympiad is the time period between and including sets of games) but widely accepted nevertheless. It is also used to indicate international competitions other than physical sports. This includes international science olympiads, such as the International Geography Olympiad, International Mathematical Olympiad and the International Linguistics Olympiad and their associated national qualifying tests (e.g., the United States of America Mathematical Olympiad or the North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad), and also events in mind-sports, such as the Science Olympiad, Mindsport Olympiad, Chess Olympiad and Computer Olympiad. In these cases Olympiad is used to indicate a regular event of international competition; it does not necessarily indicate a four-year period.