di-ve.com, Malta
June 9 2006

Armenia wins Turin Chess Olympiad, Ukraine tops Women’s Division
by di-ve.com

Friday, 09 June, 2006

Armenia coasted to a 2:2 draw against Hungary in the final round of
the 37th Chess Olympiad to clinch Gold with 36 points after thirteen
rounds followed by China with 34 and the United States with 33
points. Russia managed only sixth place, a disastrous result by any
standard for the top seeded team.

In the Women Olympiad the overall winners were the Ukrainian team
after drawing on all boards with Armenia in the last round. They
topped the table with 29.5 points followed by Russia with 28 and
China with 27.5 points.

Since the last update the Maltese team managed a good win in round
ten against South Korea (3.5-0.5) and three consecutive draws (2-2)
in the last three rounds against Bahrain, Zambia and Jamaica
respectively. This placed them in the 107th place from 150 countries.
This result is slightly better than expected notwithstanding the fact
that some players played below their rating strength.

The Maltese Women, on the other hand, finished in the 86th place
overall out of 107 countries. In the last three rounds the locals
lost to Botswana 2.5-0.5, to Panama 2-1 and won 3-0 against the
Netherland Antilles.

Meanwhile, at the General Assembly, incumbent FIDE President Kirsan
Ilyumzhinov was re-elected as FIDE President by a wide margin with 96
votes in favour against Bessel Kok’s 54. In his address after his
re-election, Ilyumzhinov pledged to attend to the concerns raised by
the Bessel Kok campaign and, in the FIDE spirit of “Gens Una Sumus”,
invited his workers to join the FIDE team. Kok, in turn, thanked his
supporters and called the election a fair fight. The FIDE General
Assembly applauded as the two protagonists gave each other a warm
embrace.