Norway’s campaign was officially launched during the 2008 Dresden Chess Olympiad where Tromsø 2014 had a large stand, which presented the Norwegian bid with both videos and brochures, and an official reception with more than 300 guests attending.
Our aim was to make the City of Tromsø known to the international chess community. This work had really started earlier with the annual Arctic Chess Challenge tournaments organized by the Tromsø Chess Club in cooperation with Tromsø 2014.
After Dresden the Norwegian Tromsø 2014 campaign has worked steadily and methodically to promote Tromsø as a serious contender to the 2014 Chess Olympiad. A lot of resources have been put in and the major breakthrough was when the Norwegian Parliament granted 11,8 million USD to the Olympiad.
It has been very important for our campaign to make our presence felt in the chess world among the decision makers of the Olympiads. To achieve this we have:
Sponsored the ACC tournament the last 4 years
Invited the international chess media to visit Tromsø
Hosted the ECU Board meeting
Hosted the FIDE Presidential Board meeting
Invited representatives from FIDE to Tromsø to show and discuss our plans
Established a program of high level Ambassadors to the project
During this year, 2010, we have also done a lot of traveling with the purpose to promote our candidacy. We believe it has been important to talk directly to important FIDE representatives. By doing this we have managed to present our bid directly to the FIDE President, to former World Champion Anatoly Karpov, to FIDE Continental Presidents etc.
Until the decision is made the 2nd of October 2010 we put all our focus on how to present the bid during the Chess Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. We make plans for our written material, visual effects, stand material and we also plan to hold an official reception at the Ugra Valley hotel.
Tromso should get it.