The second annual Belize Chess Olympiad was held at the UB gym in Belmopan
this weekend. If it sounds like an elite event, it certainly wasn’t. 100
players ranging in age from 6 to 18 years old, from all six districts competed
for Chess supremacy. And while the competition is one thing, what’s really
news is the growing popularity of this game across age ranges, social groups
and districts. It’s really catching on, and Organizer Micah Williams told
Oxa Productions who provided this video why it’s so popular and why that’s
so good.
Micah Williams, Organizer
“This is sort of the culmination of a year’s worth of chess
practices and chess teams and district tournaments and all of the kids here
participated in and qualified by winning to some extent district tournaments.
And so here today we have representation from every district and they have all
qualified and are now competing at the national tournament to decide indeed
who are the top players throughout the country.
A year ago we were maybe close to about four hundred people, today we are
over seven hundred players just at the primary school level really. There is
a lot of them, besides becoming better chess players, you see them becoming
better people. A lot of them just tend to have a lot more control in their daily
lives. They think through a lot more. Very commonly you see increase in grades
in school, they are able to concentrate, study better.”
The ward for 8 years and under went to Jeremy Chang from Cayo, the
top 9 to 10 year old went to Joshua Chiang, the top 11 to 12 year old went to
Navir Martin, the top 13 to 14 year old went to Alfred Awe and the top 15 year
old went to Wayne Huang. The youngest player at the Olympiad was Gabriel Cocom,
who is only 6 years old.
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