The World U/16 Chess Olympiad in Gyor, Hungary was won by India, ahead of Russia and Iran.
The Australian team of Ari Dale, Jack Puccini, Zachary Loh, Max Chew Lee and Kristine Quek finished tied for 25th, having lost 1-3 to the eventual winners in the first round.
See http://chess-results.com/tnr153962.aspx?lan=1&art=20&fed=AUS&flag=30&wi=821 for complete results.
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Report by Adrian Chew Lee
The team were in the end disappointed in only achieving their starting rank, but they were without their number 1 player for the first 4 rounds.
Early results when the team played above their ratings raised their expectations and unfortunately a bad result against a good team in round 5 led to a hit to morale, but they bounced back. In three of the matches that were lost, Australia had winning chances, but unfortunately good opponents will punish you for small errors and the opportunities slipped away. 3 of the team won brilliancy prizes.
Lubomir [Ftacnik] was an excellent coach – he understood the team members’ psychologies and used that to extract the best from each member. This event was a great experience for the team, especially for Max & Kristine being their first such event. The team bonded really well and they would go off and analyse and prepare as a group with or without Lubomir.
We noticed that with the exception of Russia, many teams either had only 4 players and no girl, or only played their girl player [sparingly, as little as one game]. Obviously this was a point of discussion; if FIDE are going to implement the 1 girl per team rule, then it should be that each team must have at least one girl and that girl should play a minimum number of games. In our case, Kristine played extremely well and was an asset to the team.
I must also compliment the Hungarian Chess Federation on the organization of this event at such short notice.