Chennai: After grabbing international attention when Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2019, the tourism town of Mamallapuram near Chennai is set to repeat the magic.
For, the Tamilnadu government along with the All India Chess Federation (AICF) has announces that India has won the bid to host FIDE Chess Olympiad 2022 in Mamallapuram.
The tentative dates for FIDE Chess Olympiad 2022 are July 26 to August 8, 2022 in Chennai.
The event will be held at the historic tourist spot of Mamallapuram, about 55 km from here, which had earlier hosted the Indo-China summit. According to sources, the whole town and the roads leading to it would be given a facelift ahead of the Olympiad.
AICF secretary Bharat Singh Chauhan on Wednesday said that MK Stalin played a pivotal role in bringing the 44th World Olympiad to the city, adding the Chief Minister agreed to host the event after just a few minutes of discussion.
After the FIDE declared that it is pulling the FIDE 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 Tamilnadu government, the team at AICF and the personal interest of 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 State Government to have various approvals within hours of it approaching the Chief Minister Office with the request to bid as the host, an
official release here said.
In the previous 43 times that 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’, the release said.
India being the host nation will also get an opportunity to send in multiple teams thereby increasing the our probability to have a podium finish.
The Tamilnadu government 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, it has taken all possible steps to ensure that no move is missed.
Last year the State government 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 Rs 1.98 crore.