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.