Preparation for Tromsø Chess Olympiad begins for Indonesian players

Players told to prepare for Olympiad
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Sports | Sat, February 15 2014, 2:00 PM

Members of the Indonesian chess team were rewarded with cash bonuses for their outstanding run at the recent Southeast Asian (SEA) Games and urged to prepare themselves for their next duties in Norway in August.

“We are very proud of the achievements at the SEA Games, at a time when our contingent as a whole did not perform well,” Hashim Djojohadikusumo, chairman of the Indonesian Chess Association (Percasi), said during a ceremony in Jakarta on Wednesday evening.

The chess team, spearheaded by the country’s number one player Susanto Megaranto in the men’s side and newly crowned women’s grandmaster (WGM) Medina Warda Aulia, collected five gold medals from the 18 on offer at the regional multi-event sporting showcase in Myanmar in December.

The team, which comprised seven male and six female athletes, also snagged four silver and seven bronze medals.

While the chess team reveled in its gold medal collection, Indonesia — which was the winner of the most gold medals two years ago — put in a poor performance, collecting only 64 gold medals to finish in fourth place among 11 participating countries, below champion Thailand, host Myanmar and Vietnam.

“As a token of our gratitude I will give each of the team members Rp 10 million [US$834.72],” Hashim said.

Successful athletes at the SEA Games might expect further cash bonuses from the government, with gold winners entitled to Rp 200 million, silver winners Rp 75 million and bronze winners Rp 25 million.

Percasi also gave bonuses amounting to Rp 50 million to Medina following her sizzling performance at the Junior World Chess Championship last in Turkey September, where she attained a WGM title.

The team is now looking to the bigger task of taking part in the Chess Olympiad to be held in Tromso, Norway, from Aug. 1 to 14.

“We are preparing five men and five women. We have enough funds to send them to the event,” Hashim said.

He said that the association would hire four foreign trainers to help with the team’s preparation.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com