India wins the bid to host FIDE Chess Olympiad 2022
The Government of Tamil Nadu along with the All India Chess Federation has announced that India has won the bid to host FIDE Chess Olympiad 2022 in Chennai. After the FIDE declared that it is pulling the Chess Olympiad 2022 out of Russia due to the ongoing war situation, the world scrambled to take up this opportunity to bid for the prestigious event. It took tremendous effort and coordination on part of all the officers involved in the Government of Tamil Nadu, the team at AICF and the personal interest of the honourable CM Thiru. M.K. Stalin for India to come up with the winning bid.
In a period of exactly 10 days, from the announcement by FIDE about it looking for new hosts the AICF co-ordinated with the Government of Tamil Nadu to have various approvals within hours of it approaching the Chief Minister Office with the request to bid as the host.
During the previous 43 instances when the official FIDE Chess Olympiad has been organised since 1927 India has not once been able to be the host nation. "We are delighted to have won the bid for the 44th FIDE Chess Olympiad 2022 and will be working towards making it the best ever organised chess event. In this event, Chennai is going to host 2000 participants from over 200 countries to compete for the top prize. India being the host nation will also get an opportunity to send in multiple teams thereby increasing the probability to have a podium finish," a release stated.
The government of Tamil Nadu has always been a very big supporter of Chess. From promoting chess in schools, providing the required infrastructure for chess tournaments, to felicitating chess players with monetary prizes Government of Tamil Nadu has taken all possible steps to ensure that no move is missed. Last year the Government of Tamil Nadu felicitated 14 players of the state who have won Gold in FIDE Online Olympiad 2020, FIDE World Teams 2019, Bronze in FIDE Online Olympiad 2021, along with the newly minted Grandmaster, Woman Grandmaster and International Master with a cash award of 1 crore 98 lakh.
Such initiatives have given us tremendous results with 24 of the 73 GMs of India such as GM Praggnanandha, GM Gukesh, GM Adhiban, GM Srinath and the world famous GM Vishwanathan Anand coming from Tamil Nadu. We are expecting more GMs to come in the near future and are completely committed to the cause of chess.
The tentative dates for FIDE Chess Olympiad 2022 are 26th July 2022 to 8th August 2022 in Chennai.
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