Muscat, Sept 12
As many as 176 chess players representing 21 countries from different parts of the world confirmed their attendance in the long-awaited 2021-22 Asian Amateur Chess Championship in Muscat.
The Asian event, which is under organisation of Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth represented by Oman Chess Committee (OCC), will run from September 29 to October 6 at the Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex in Bausher.
The deadline of registration ended officially on Monday and 122 players will take part in the men's championship while 45 players will compete in the women's category.
The organisers at the OCC are underway in their final stages of technical and logistics arrangements ahead of the start of the championship.
Sultanate of Oman had won the rights of hosting this Asian event after tough bidding competition among different Asian nations. The Asian Chess Federation (ACF) had reviewed carefully all the bids and ensured its completeness on the facilities, administrative affairs, organising sides, and other relevant parts of hosting any top class tourney.
Developed infrastructure and availability of the desired facilities put Oman’s bid in priority to host and organise this event. The OCC had managed to successfully organise different regional tournaments during the past few years. Hosting the Asian tournament will assist popularity of the game in the Sultanate of Oman.
The Asian Amateur Chess Championship will feature presence of many brightest minds in Asia including the top-ranking and continental players such as: Asaan Koshof from Kyrgistan, Mahmood Masarani from Lebanon, Suhail Junaid from Pakistan, Rawadha al Sarkal from UAE, Iman Sawan from Palestine and Salma al Khulaifi from Qatar.
Muscat city will feature competitions of many top players from different nationalities including: Bahrain, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Palestine, Qatar, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Syria, United Arab Emirates, Yemen and the hosts Sultanate of Oman.
Mahdi Abdulrahim (UAE) will lead the technical committee of the Asian event while Iran’s Mehrdad will chair umpiring team. The event will witness attendance of Omani referees including: Muallam al Wadhai, Khalid al Hadidi, Hamdan al Hinai, Ruqaya al Balushi besides presence of other new umpires like Khadija al Qasmi, Aliyaa al Siyabi and Ahmed al Kharousi.
The national chess players had registered different accomplishments recently as Rawan al Balushi was crowned as WCM in the junior category which is one of the official titles awarded by the International Chess Federation. Besides that many domestic chess players had produced an impressive show in the last 44th Chess Olympiad 2022 which concluded last month in India.
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