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Report on Online Olympiad Trainer Support Program

INTRODUCTION

It was decided to provide trainer support to up to 30 teams participating in the Online Olympiad 2021,  the main objective being to expose these developing countries to professional preparation of national teams.

Our criteria was to identify the worst placed teams at the Batumi Olympiad 2018 and combining the results of their men and women teams which qualified the teams below:

Combined Open & Women Teams
NoTeamPtsNoTeamPts
1Gabon9616Mauritius54
2Djibouti9317Ghana54
3Central African Republic9318Bermuda50
4Gambia8419Cameroon49
5Seychelles8320Bahamas41
6Burundi8021Ethiopia39
7Tanzania7822Netherlands Antilles39
8Rwanda7523Guyana37
9Togo7424Maldives29
10Palau7425Kenya24
11Ivory Coast7326Swaziland/Eswantini21
12Senegal7227Thailand17
13Lesotho6628Cyprus15
14Sierra Leone6529Surinam9
15Sao Tome & Principe5530Jordan2

We made a request for funding on 10th February 2021, and once the dates of the Online Olympiad was announced for 20th August to 15th September 2021, invitations were issued to these Federations on 18th July.

FEDERATION AND TRAINER MATCH MAKING

Unfortunately, only 13 teams accepted the invitation despite our further extending the deadline, and from these, Kenya later decided to opt out.

NoTeam
1Gabon
2Djibouti
3Burundi
4Rwanda
5Senegal
6Lesotho
NoTeam
7Sierra Leone
8Sao Tome & Principe
9Ghana
10Bermuda
11Cameroon
12Cyprus

At the same time 10 more teams not in the list also requested for trainer support, and because of the poor acceptance rate, with the agreement of FIDE Management, it was decided to reward their enthusiasm and include them and there are as follows:

13Zambia
14Uganda
15Laos
16Jamaica
17Mauritania
18Costa Rica
19Libya
20Eswatini
21Zimbabwe
22Gambia

Together with the invitations to Federations, we also invited all licenced trainers via our website with at least the FT or FI title and the IM or WGM title to apply.

After the deadline we then provided the Federations with a list of all applicants and asked them to make a three choices, with their preferences ranked 1, 2 and 3, to be assigned on a first come first serve basis:

NoFederationTrainer Choice/Assigned
1GabonIM Jaroslaw Krassowizkij
2LesothoIM Watu Kobese 
3Sao Tome and PríncipeGM Alonso Zapata
4BermudaWGM Aleksandra Dimitrijevic
5DjiboutiWGM Amina Mezioud
6GhanaGM Reinaldo Vera Gonzalez-Quevedo
7SenegalGM Slim Bouaziz
8CameroonIM Daniel Cawdery
9Sierra LeoneGM Dimitri Komarov
10RawandaGM Alojzije Jankovic
11CyprusIM Tadej Sakelsek
12BurundiWGM Mitra Hejazipour
13ZambiaIM Rodwell Makoto
14UgandaIM Sequera Paolini, Jose Rafael
15LaosWGM Enkhtuul Altan-Ulzii
16JamaicaIM Juan Armando Rohl Montes
17MauritaniaGM Amirreza Pourramezanali
18Costa RicaGM Bernal Gonzalez Acosta
19LibyaIM Mokliss El Adnani
20EswatiniGM Valeri Gaprindashvili
21ZimbabweIM Robert Kreisl
22GambiaIM Vishal Sareen

A few requested trainers in specific languages.

THE TRAINER SUPPORT PROGRAM

The training was for 10 hours, five hours pre-event preparation and five hours post event review, but in many cases, the trainers did more.

CONCLUSION

Reports provided by the trainers together with their recommendations have both confirmed and provided fresh insights to the challenges of these Federations and will be reviewed together with management.

Feedback from all the Federations has also been unanimously positive and the program was very much appreciated.

We are of the opinion that the program was a great success for the following reasons:

  1. It is very important to assist less developed Federations when they are participating on a world stage and to expose them to professional trainers
  2. We were able to get a better understanding of their aspirations and also their needs
  3. For the first time we were able to have trainers of various levels successfully show their qualities and to make a difference to the teams they worked with
  4. In many ways we are better prepared for trainer support at the coming Moscow Olympiad

Mikhail Kobalia

TRG Chairman