George Lester, right, is about to shake hands with co-champion David Lovejoy in the under 2000 division of 2009 Gold Coast Open chess tournament participated in by over 120 players from Oceania (Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Palau and Solomon Islands). Graeme Gardiner, middle, organized the event with International Arbiter (IA) Dr. Charles Zworestine, 2nd from left. Gloria Sukhu participated in the women's division of 2009 OZCC.
(Photo by Roberto Hernandez)
DRUGS IN CHESS
IN DECEMBER 12, 2001, chess columnist Tim Harding, wrote in his 10-page column "The Kibitzers" the following: (Page 9 - Drugs in Chess)
The final element of the new FIDE agenda is incumbent President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov's attempt to bring chess into the Olympic movement. Apparently he has already had discussions with Juan Antonio Samaranch and is confident that sooner or later chess will become part of the programme for the Winter Olympics.
Chess hasn't been in the Olympics since the 1920's and getting it back there has long been a dream of chess administrators in many countries. Especially so, because Olympic recognition for your sport is in many countries very important (if not absolutely essential) for obtaining State funds.
So another piece of the jigsaw falls into place. National federations which might see very little gain from other FIDE proposals which largely affects professional players, because they may not have any in their country, are probably precisely those which are desperately in needd of the flow of funds which Olympic recognition would bring.
I think this must be the explanation why so many countries have backed Ilyumzhinov even if they have reservations about him, his colleagues and his other policies. If he can deliver the Olympics he is a hero.
However there is a snag. The obstacle to getting chess into the Olympics used to be professionalism. Even Joe Soap with his 1900 rating might win a cash prize in the intermediate section of his local weekend chess congress.
This would have disqualified him in the old days from taking part in amateur sport (if chess were regarded as a sport).
In the 1980's this all changed. The old amateur ethos was done away within athletics, which has always been the sport of the Olympic programme. Since then, other professional sports like tennis and baseball have got into the Olympics.
Nowadays the Olymic movement doesn't exactly have an untarnished reputation, what with the bribery scandal over the awarding of next year's winter Olympics and revelations about positive drugs tests being suppressed at some previous Olympic Games.
Of course these are all physical sports and chess isn't, strictly speaking, although it is very had for physically unfit people to do well in master tournaments.
However, Samaranch apparently doesn't see this as a problem; in many countries chess is seen as a sport. The price however is that any Olympic sport must have a drug testing policy, even if nobody yet has invented any drug (other than caffeine) which has any benefit to chess players.
The first drug testing at chess event apparently was done on the winners of an Italian tournament in 1999 and it is going to be a regular occurence at international chess events soon.
For example, a Dutch master who tried beta blockers to reduce tension in time trouble reported that they made him play worse. "I could see my position was deteriorationg but it wasn't a problem."
Survival in a crisis requires the adrenaline that the drug prevents. Likewise, alcohol, cannabis etc. are known to impair chess performance while other drugs that are tested for in other sports (steroids and so on) are hardly relevant to chess since they only affect masculature and the ability to train more intensively.
The main concern seems to be about drugs like ephedrine which may be in over-the-counter medicines and could cause a player to fail a test even if they don't help chess performance.
So if you are going to a FIDE event, make sure you don't buy medicines and bring a doctor's certificate for whatever prescription medicines you are taking, and give this to the tournament organization at the start of the event.
Some players and chess writers have just seen the drugs issue as a bit of a joke. However, the British Chess Federation is taking it seriously and devotes a page to the matter in the latest issue of its publication Chess Notes.
They point out that at present there is to be no out-of-competition testing. I think we shall just have to see how this one evolves, and maybe get back to it later.
CONCLUSION
Having thought extensively about, and now aired, what seem to be the main issues about FIDE's changes to chess, I find myself in an unclear position. I am in favor of some changes and suspicious of, or dead against others. However, that is what chess mastery is about, isn't it -- carrying on regardless in an unclear position!
Source: Chessmate by Roberto Hernandez
Tia Belau Newspaper
Pages 13 and 15
Volume 19 Issue 25
June 21-27, 2010
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