| Sports Minister of Turkish Republic Murat Başesgioğlu Participated to the Closing Ceremony |
| Friday, 20 March 2009 |
President of the Board of Turkish İş Bank Caner Çimenbiçer: “It is an Honour for us to Have Atatürk’s Name in the tournament”
The first speech in the closing ceremony was delivered by Caner Çimenbiçer who stated that since the year of 2005, the cooperation between the Turkish Chess Federation and Turkish İş Bank has been mentioned both in national and international arena and “We are going to launch new projects for transforming Turkey into a chess country”.
CEO of İş Bank Ersin Özince: “Our long term support to chess will resume”
The CEO of İş Bank stated that sponsoring sports institutional should be task of any important institution in any country. He summarized the goals of the corporate sponsorship of the bank to the Turkish Chess Federation as “We have long term goals such as making chess a mass sport, making chess one of the strongest branches of Turkish sports in the international arena, supporting the development of youth and discovering new young talents”.
FIDE Başkanvekili Georgios Makropoulos: “Atatürk Would be Honored”
FIDE Deputy President Georgios Markopoulos reminded the guests that Turkish Chess Federation has already hosted many international tournaments successfuly and added “I learned that the founder of Turkish Republic Atatürk founded İş Bank. What has been achieved, organization of this tournament and İş Bank’s support to chess would make Atatürk proud.”
Sports Minister Murat Başesgioğlu: “I would like to thank Turkish İş Bank and the Turkish Chess Federation for the Excellent Organization”
Sports Minister of Turkey Murat Başesgioğlu indicated the concrete development Turkish chess thanks to the support of Turkish İş Bank. “We hosting many different events and the fact that Turkish Chess Federation supports the African countries is making us proud. I would like to thank Turkish İş Bank and the Turkish Chess Federation for the excellent organization.”
Minister also indicated that Turkey is intending to host the 2010 World Women’s Chess Championship: “I hope Turkish İş Bank and our federation would have successful meetings with FIDE so that we could gladly welcome such an important organization in our country.”
A lot more information and pictures can be found at http://istanbul2009.fide.com/
A nicely organized event. Just a few broadcast glitches but excellent overall.
Lovely picture and it seems like a well run event! Humpy reminds me of serena and venus after they win the event the first thing they say is ” i wasnt playing well”! hahaha
Who is this Ataturk they talk about all the time? He must be a really busy chess organizer.