Tough outing for Kenyan players at World Cadets Chess Championships
Reading Time: 2min | Tue. 26.11.24. | 23:56
Chess Kenya President Bernard Wanjala said they are disappointed but are taking steps to ensure there is an improvement
Kenyan players had a disastrous outing at the World Cadets Chess Championships that came to an end on Tuesday in Italy.
Africa under-12 champion Jadon Simiyu was the highest-ranked Kenyan player but could only manage four points from 11 matches and finished in position 103 out of the 150 participants who took part in the tournament.
.jpg)
Apart from Simiyu, 11 other Kenyan players were among the least ranked in the tournament. Herald Kagwe, Aiden Wainaina, Godfrey Gitonga, Mushila Ayan and David Mutane all finished with three points.
The performance by Kenyans in the under-8 boys category was no better, Ethan Nderitu, Kingsley Nzioki and Adriel Baraka picked just two points each showing that there is still a lot of work to be done in this area.
Olive Wanjiru, Elsie Wangechi and Rochelle Maria finished at the bottom of the girls under-12 category picking three points each.
In the girls under-10 category, Zawadi Mugo and Elli Kenda also performed poorly picking two points.
Shogdzhiev Roman from Kazakhstan collected nine points to win the under-10 boys category.
The Candidate Master (CM) with an impressive rating of 2200 lost only one match during the 13-day event. Llari Marc from France finished runners-up after collecting 8.5 points.
The Frenchman is also highly rated at 2201. Egyptian Sameh Mohammed was the highest-ranked African as he finished in fourth position with 7.5 points.
Speaking on the performance, Chess Kenya President Bernard Wanjala said they are disappointed but are taking steps to ensure there is an improvement.
“This is the second youth team we are sending to a world event this year and while we had an impressive performance at the World Youth held in Brazil, the same has not been the case in Italy.
We have seen where the problem is and starting this December holidays we are going to expose our players to high-level training to prepare them for such competitions,” he said.
.jpg)