Chess gets Asiad nod

After much dillydallying, the Bangladesh Olympic Association on Wednesday finally included the chess team in its contingent for the November 12-27 Asian Games in Guangzhou, China.
The BOA had initially asked the chess players to participate in the individual events but the federation insisted on competing in the team events, which eventually led to their exclusion from contingent earlier.
Bangladesh finished seventh among the 25th participants in the last Asian Games held in Doha, Qatar, which was their main argument although initially the BOA paid no heed it
The BOA finally agreed to send the entry for the team event but said it will bear the expenses of seven players and the federation has to bear the other three players’ expenses from their own fund.
The 10 chess players who will be representing Bangladesh in the meet are GM Niaz Murshed, GM Reefat bin Sattar, Minhazuddin Ahmed Sagar, Abu Sufian Shakil, Mehedi Hasan Parag, WIM Rani Hamid, Sharmin Sultana Shirin, Nazrana Khan Eva, Masuda Begum and Sharmin Liza.
Three Grand Masters Ziaur Rahman, Abdullah Al Rakib and Enamul Hossain Rajib have been left out of the squad as they refused to play under the current ad-hoc committee of the chess federation.
Mokaddes Hossain, general secretary of the Bangladesh Chess Federation, was a relieved man after the BOA decision.
‘We have been waiting for the nod for a long time and at last got it,’ he said. All the five male players are already in the training camp as we are also preparing for the Chess Olympiad.
‘Depending on the fund we get from the BOA we look forward to starting the camp for female players as early as possible,’ said Mokaddes. With the inclusion of chess the number of trainees for the Asian Games rose to 239.
The BOA earlier finalised 14 disciplines for the Games. They are football, cricket, hockey, athletics, kabaddi, swimming, weightlifting, boxing, archery, shooting, taekwondo, golf, karate and wushu.
Among the events, apart from boxing, golf, hockey and football, Bangladesh will field both men and women athletes in all other disciplines.

Courtesy of NewAge