9th All African Games: Lessons Learned

The just concluded 9th All African Games at Algiers has been described by the continental press as "having minor organizational problems but otherwise successful". Reports we gathered about the chess event however give us more details about this ‘minor’ organizational problems. One is that recordings of played games were not available to players at any point during the event. Also there was not enough food variety to cater to the varied tastes and culinary backgrounds of the multicultural gathering. This made some of the Nigerian chess players struggle 'food-wise' throughout the event. Also one of players (whom shall remain anonymous) complained about the lack of alcohol as a recreational diversion, to have been a constraining factor to his performance. However the main reason for this dissatisfaction is probably that the only other chess event at A.A.G, Abuja 2003, completely outclassed it in every organizational aspect, therefore making it an anticlimax to the expectant players.

The anticlimax was especially more so for the Nigerian athletes who motivated themselves with dreams of the game as they went through a series of gruesome; trials, cancelled trials and retrials. Furthermore, the hoped for and financially profitable, training tour of Germany was cancelled making the sacrifice of regular individual activities for the camping, seem to be without sufficient compensation.

However it was not all bad. Algiers scenery was very beautiful, in fact, FM Bunmi Olape said it looked very European and that he was particularly glad to see his football hero, Zinedine Zidane’s picture on billboards on almost every street.

As regular readers of this site know now, Nigeria’s male team came 4th overall and only won a bronze on Kolade Onabogun’s board. This is, result-wise, worse than Abuja 2003 but performance-wise better due to the far better overall placing. At Abuja they won 2 gold and 1 bronze (Aikhoje Odion, Bunmi Olape, Bimbo Ogunnowo respectively).

The ‘underperformance’ of the male players has been blamed on the tournament strategy. The ‘Naija strategy’ is one we all know as it is regularly employed in our team events like sports festival and NUGA games. It is as follows: After a few rounds (1-3) players on perfect scores are protected by not allowing them to play against strong teams and strong players so as to allow them to remain on perfect score by picking up easy points against weak players. (Nowadays, we hear there's an ‘improved’ version , ‘Naija strategy 2.0’, which we won't discuss right now.)

But before we conclude on that issue, let’s take a look at why this ‘naija strategy’ failed. The strategy requires the protected players to force wins whenever they play thereby putting pressure on them. Also, the weaker teams at that level could possibly have good players who are not known because they have not played internationally. So the coinciding of these two factors creates a situation that the sacred players have to force wins against good players. Very tough!

Somehow it worked for the girls. They started with it, and then they changed it. Tobi Olatunji was initially the protected player as she was the only one who won her first game. That left the others playing for a team medal. But veteran Pauline Ikpa and the super-pretty Omolola Alabi began piling wins upon wins. The girls began to feel very confident and hungry to prove their strength. In fact, as I am writing this story they are battling for more chess glory in Cameroon. Though they won team silver these heroines believe strongly that they are worth the gold.