21st Chess Olympiad
The 21st Chess Olympiad was held from June 30, 1974 at the Palais des Expositions in Nice on 6.
The team chess tournament was the first chess Olympiad without the participation of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) since the founding of the GDR in October 1949 (except 1950 and 1954). The GDR later took only part in the Chess Olympiads of Thessaloniki in 1988, Novi Sad 1990. The last time found Chess Olympiads for women and men held at separate locations. The 6th Chess Olympiad for women was held in 1974 in the Colombian city of Medellin. Again, won the Soviet team.
- 2.1 Organisation
- 2.2 Non- participation
- 2.3 FIDE exclusion of South Africa and Rhodesia
- 3.1 Individual Gold Medals
Prehistory
Non-commencement of the GDR
The German Gymnastics and Sports Association ( DTSB ) initially decided in 1969 under President Manfred Ewald, in consultation with the Politburo that the GDR sports should be restructured in terms of the success in the previous Summer Olympics to prepare for future Olympic Games.
On 29 March 1973, the DTSB decided on "the role of the sports federations of the GDR in international sport " that 25 non-Olympic sports in the so-called contract is withdrawn, whereby the respective sports associations were no longer allowed to participate in " international championships and in sporting competitions with non-socialist countries," where " [ p] olitical and sport political reasons [ ... ] lead to exceptions " can. The reason given to the GDR was stated that " [ is ] the sportsmen and women the task of [ ... ] to represent worthy by top athletic performance on the basis of specified performance targets and performance contracts. This concentration on a specific number of sports makes necessary due to our limited material, economic and financial possibilities, the relatively small population of our country as well as from kader moderate considerations. "Among the sports mentioned was also chess. The exception clause was in 1988 by Ewald's fresh angetretenem successor Klaus Eichler used to leave the GDR to participate in Chess Olympiads again. The GDR reached 1988 level on points with the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) by the fine score a higher place than the FRG.
There are different views about the causes of the decision. Mario valley speculated that the poor placement of the GDR at the Chess Olympiads from 1968 to 1972 could have also contributed to the withdrawal of the performance mandate. Rainer Knaak later reported that since the 1960s the financial resources for chess had been shortened. Paul Werner Wagner, chairman of Emanuel Lasker Society, suggested that the president of the East German Chess Federation, Armin Heintze, due to its position as a prosecutor of the Prosecutor General of the GDR did not want to make a public stand against the performance decision. Günter Pure man suspects that Ewald with the money available as possible would improve the reputation of the German Democratic Republic, for which chess had been " on the sidelines ".
Today, the performance decision is unanimously criticized.
Chess Olympiad
Organization
Chairman of the Organizing Committee was Raoul Bartolo. As Chief Judge Alexander Kotov worked.
As a reflection two and a half hours for 40 moves and then one more hour for 16 trains have been established.
The tournament was played as a two-stage round-robin tournament, where first eight preliminary groups were formed, each nine to ten teams. The two top finishers came in the final Group A, while the teams came onto the respective other two places in the final Group B, C, D and E. For placement initially ruled the board points, then the team points and tie the result of the direct clash.
As a prize for the best game of one thousand U.S. dollars were awarded. The match between Michael Stean (England ) and Walter Browne was (United States), which had ruled for a queen sacrifice for the Englishman, selected from nine candidates.
For the first time the newly introduced Elo ratings were used as the basis for the pairings of teams. This brought a criticism, because there were technical errors in the implementation.
It 3085 the scheduled 3156 games were played. South Africa and Nicaragua ended participation in the championship ahead of schedule. For political reasons, several encounters were, notably Iraq, not fought against Rhodesia and Algeria against Rhodesia in the final Group E and Tunisia against Israel in the final Group B, was therefore evaluated in each case by Elo. Nicaragua went away after the first round of the opening acts, South Africa after the expulsion from the FIDE.
Results of the already beaten opponents against each other in the final Group A to D were taken without a fight as a virtual first round of the group stage. The only appropriate meeting of two teams in the final group E was also taken there in the fifth round of the group stage.
Algeria had missed the preliminaries by a late arrival and was therefore divided into Group E Final.
The Palais des Expositions ( venue of the Olympiad ) possessed in addition to a lack of air conditioning only a poor lighting, which is why the meetings, which were always begun by 15 clock, were often finished in low light conditions.
By the death of French President Georges Pompidou few weeks was formed a new government before the Chess Olympiad in France, which did not fulfill the promise made by Pompidou staff. Due to the shortage of staff chess players who actually spent their holidays in Nice, had to be won for the organization.
Also the hotel where the players resided, offered poor conditions. Thus, the quality of the food was criticized and the players were woken at seven clock of workers who were busy with jackhammers.
Not participations
In addition to the above-mentioned non-participation of the GDR, Bent Larsen ( Denmark) refused for financial reasons to participate. World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer ( United States) demanded a separate building where it would be shielded from spectators and the press. As the organizers refused to accept the special conditions fisherman, this also refused to participate in the Chess Olympiad.
During the Chess Olympiad Costa Mecking the Brazilian player Henrique traveled there from after differences of opinion with his team captain Hélder Câmara. Mecking had initially unable to participate in the first three rounds, there were technical problems with his plane ticket. After participating in rounds four to six he felt on the morning of the seventh round uncomfortable. Câmara presented Mecking against his will but on the first board on, but this did not appear. Then there was discord between Mecking and Câmara, which resulted in Mecking refused further participation and was present only as a spectator. As Mecking was eliminated from the tournament area, he departed.
FIDE exclusion of South Africa and Rhodesia
The World Chess Federation FIDE was confronted with a scandal that since the non-commencement of Howard Staunton's against Paul Morphy in 1858 was considered the largest in the chess world.
At the annual FIDE Congress to Helsinki in 1973, it was decided to pursue the question whether the treatment of colored players in Rhodesia ( now Zimbabwe ) and South Africa is at odds with the FIDE Statutes. FIDE president Max Euwe traveled for this reason in both countries. In his report Euwe did not state their discrimination of colored players. The report went to Nice.
The Moroccan Chess Federation has asked the taking place during the Chess Olympiad FIDE meeting in 1974 the request, South Africa and Rhodesia ruled by FIDE. Thirteen states, including the Soviet Union, the applicant joined.
The upcoming re-election of the FIDE President has been speculated that Euwe would probably just lose to its competitors Mendez. The Soviet Union offered to Euwe to vote for him if this would agree with the exclusion of South Africa and Rhodesia.
After the exclusion of the two states of the FIDE South Africa withdrew its participation. Euwe was trying to achieve an end to the participation of Rhodesia, but failed. The scandal escalated into later so far that the communist countries turned against the Chess Olympiad 1976 in Israel and organized its own counter- Olympics.
Final Final Group A crosstabulate
Individual Gold Medals
Board five and six, the first and second spare board. Decisive for the award of the medals was the percent yield point. On the second reserve board two equal points, players received an individual gold medal.
Final Final Group B crosstabulate
- Tunisia refused for political reasons, to fight against Israel. The result was determined on the basis of the results from the ELO numbers of the players expected values .
- The match between Canada and Iceland ended 3-1 for Canada. However, the result of the jury was incorrectly recorded as 2:2 and so endures.
Final Final Group C crosstabulate
South Africa was excluded from the FIDE than three laps were playing. The team then came back from the tournament and was disqualified. The results obtained are listed here, but not included in the total score.
Final Final Group D crosstabulate
Final Final Group E crosstabulate
Iraq and Algeria were for political reasons not to play against Rhodesia. The results were determined according to the ELO - profit expectation.
This and That
- The exclusion of Rhodesia from the FIDE for the first time, ending a non- FIDE team regularly a Chess Olympiad.
- A team that consisted of less than four players, was allowed to participate in the race, but in the qualifying group 4 An incoming only with two players Nicaragua withdrew after the first preliminary round match of the competition.
- Due to the shortage of staff in the organization team there was one time in the postwar period, not all games covering bulletins, as they appeared only once after the first round.
- Asked Willie Reussner of the crew of the U.S. Virgin Islands on a negative record by losing 19 of 22 games. Since Chess Olympiads were later limited to 14 rounds, the record can not be surpassed in the current tournament system.
- The youngest player of the tournament was in 1970 already the An incoming for the U.S. Virgin Islands now fifteen year old Andrew Scherman.