Jamaica Heads to 42nd World Chess Olympiad in Baku

Right on the heels of Jamaica’s impressive showing in the recently concluded Rio Summer Olympics, led by the irrepressible Usain Bolt, another Jamaican team is off to battle the world!

Thirteen individuals (of a fifteen-person delegation) comprising players and officials left Jamaica on Monday, August 29 to compete in the 42^nd World Chess Olympiad scheduled to be held in Baku, Azerbaijan from September 1-14, 2016.  The delegation will travel via New York, USA and Kiev, Ukraine. They will be joined in Baku by Donald Miller and Rachel Miller, the other two members of the team who are travelling via Canada.

Jamaica debuted at the Olympiad in 1978 (Buenos Aires, Argentina) when it fielded only a Men’s team. In 1984 a Jamaica Women’s team debuted at the games in Thessaloniki, Greece.

Although Jamaica has had some impressive individual results the country’s best team result was in 2010 when the women won the first place trophy for their category at the 39^th edition of the games held in Khanty-Mansiysk, Siberia, Russia.

The World Chess Olympiad is a biennial event that has been held since 1927. Men can lead a Women’s team but cannot play on it; women can lead and/or play on an Open team (originally a “Men’s” team). The defending champion is China after a maiden victory at the last games in Tromso, Norway, 2014; the Women’s defending champion is many-time winner Russia.

Jamaica is fielding two teams at this year’s event which will see approximately one hundred and eighty (180) countries participating. The details of the members of the two teams and the officials are stated below.

Jamaica’s participation was made possible chiefly by sponsorship from the Government of Jamaica (via the Sports Development Foundation), the Jamaica Chess Federation (“JCF”) and the Kasparov Chess Foundation.

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