REPORT: PLAYERS IN PUNCH-UP OVER ‘ANNA KOURNIKOVA OF CHESS’ AT BERMUDA EVENT
By Ruth O’Kelly-Lynch
Royal Gazette, Bermuda
June 8 2006
The Bermuda chess team has been dubbed one of the world’s worst teams
in international papers, but it has also gained the reputation of
throwing the best parties.
This year its annual party will be remembered because of a punch-up
that happened between a world championship judge and the world’s
third-ranked chess champ over a young Australian beauty.
“[The Bermuda party] is always organised by the Bermuda team because
they are one of the world’s worst teams but they run the best party,”
Graeme Gardiner, a former Australian Chess Federation president,
told a Sydney paper.
The young woman who sparked the row at the Bermuda party is Arianne
Caoili, she is ranked number 2,569 in the world and dubbed “the Anna
Kournikova of chess” the Australian paper said.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported that British grand chessmaster
Danny Gormally was infuriated when he saw her dancing with the world’s
number three player, Armenia’s Levon Aronian. Arianne, who graces a
stamp in Austria and came in seventh in the first World Chess Beauty
Contest in May, was reported to be salsa dancing with the Armenian
when the first punch was thrown by Mr. Gormally.
“She’s a 19-year-old, very attractive girl,” Mr. Gardiner said.
“She’s probably got the guys queuing up for her. As far as I’m aware
in this incident she was an innocent party in the sense that she was
merely having a dance at the Bermuda party.”
The following day Mr. Gormally, who is ranked sixth in Britain, left
the competition and was reportedly “gutted” when he realised what he
had done, a source told the paper.
He also apologised to the Armenian team, but not before the some
members of the delegation threw some punches at him.