Ten of Guyana’s best chess players selected to compete at 44th Olympiad

…Fund-raising dinner set for June 25th

After an intensive selection process, the Guyana Chess Federation has named 10 chess players to represent Guyana at this year’s 44th FIDE Olympiad in Chennai, India; where, for the first time in almost 100 years of the game’s history, the Chess Olympiad will be staged from Thursday, July 28th to Wednesday, August 10th.

For the Open category, the five males selected are CM Taffin Khan, CM Wendell Meusa, FM Anthony Drayton, Roberto Neto, and Loris Nathoo.
Meusa is the reigning national champion, and has notably won the title eight times in his chess career. Khan is the former national champion, and he and the rest of the male team are no strangers to the Olympiad.
In the Women’s category, the GCF has selected its youngest contingent ever for the games. This team is comprised of 12-year-old Anaya Lall, 14-year-old Pooja Lam, 18-year-old Sasha Shariff, 20-year-old Jessica Callender and 21-year-old Nellisha Johnson.
Of those in the Women’s team, only Sasha Shariff and Nellisha Johnson have experience competing at an Olympiad tournament, while Callender has competed only in Online Olympiads.

Lam, the reigning national women’s champion, is the country’s youngest national women’s champion since the tournament first began in 2014.
Lall is the first chess player with a disability to ever travel to represent Guyana on a national team. The (deaf) chess player is also Guyana’s first chess player with a disability to represent Guyana in an international competition, having competed virtually in the World Chess Championship for People with Disabilities last year.
The travelling team will be accompanied by Team Captain Mr. Davion Mars and Head of the Delegation Mrs. Jaishree Lam. Additionally, the team members will undergo training with GM Georg Mohr and IM Atanu Lahiri in preparation for the high-level event.
Guyana competed in the Chess Olympiad from as far back as the late 1970s, when Guyana was known as the best in the Caribbean at the sport. This was followed by a large gap when Guyana competed in no Olympiads for 36 years, until a team competed in Norway in 2014. Guyana has since not missed a single Olympiad event. Even during the pandemic, the Federation had managed to put together a team for the FIDE Online Olympiad comprising players who were competing virtually throughout the year.
The Guyana Chess Federation is currently seeking sponsorship for the team’s participation in the event, which is widely regarded as the “Olympics” of chess.
The GCF will also be hosting a fundraising dinner at the Roraima Ballroom of the Ramada Princess Hotel on June 25th, and tickets would be available for just $10,000.
Persons interested in supporting this team can contact the Guyana Chess Federation through any team member or executive, or through their Facebook page.
FIDE and the All-India Chess Federation have also collaborated to introduce the first ever annual torch relay. This Olympic-style tradition will begin this July in India, the birth-place of the game. The inaugural edition of this torch relay will only traverse in India, due to the paucity of time. However, from the next edition of the Olympiad and onwards, the torch relay will always start in India, then pass through FIDE member territories across the globe.
The GCF wishes to extend heartiest congratulations to the team members, and to wish them every success on their journey.