Olympiad 2010 Wrap: The Rest

It’s taken me a while to get to this final Olympiad wrap – readjusting to work, GMT+10 and general life outside of the tournament hall has been difficult.  But don’t think I’ve forgotten to report back about the Olympiad’s “Tournament B”.

‘Tournament B’, like ‘Queenside-castling’, is another of those unofficial slang chess phrases.  It’s used to discuss the social, non-chess aspects of a tournament.  For instance, two hip chess-nuts may converse as follows:

ChessBoy: “How’d you go in the Czech Open?”

ChessGirl: “Terrible!  I finished on minus-two and shed 20 ELO.”

ChessBoy: “Gutted!  Did you have a good Tournament-B at least?”

ChessGirl: “Mate!  The beer in Czech is cheaper than water!  And as for the boys…”

You get the idea.  For the following awards, however, I’m just going to extrapolate to anything that doesn’t specifically relate to the chess.

So without further ado, let’s take a look at my selections for the 2010 Olympiad Awards for Tournament B.

2010 OLYMPIAD AWARDS – TOURNAMENT B

Most Creative Lift-Calling System: The local Siberian elevator corporation.  This small and previously unknown engineering firm successfully succeeded in rendering every lift in the tournament hotel unusable with a single press of the button.  This is the first (and most likely only) time I’ve come back from overseas looking forward to jumping in my office’s elevators.

Biggest Operational Fail: That’s right: the Ludicrous Lifts did NOT win this award!  Brace yourself.  Half-way through the tournament, the playing hall men’s toilets acquired an interesting sign: “Please DO NOT flush paper towels down toilet.” Fair enough, thought I, until I realised there were only dryers to dry your hands anyway – no paper towels.  That’s right, I know you’re thinking it, and waste-paper bins next to each cubicle’s toilet bowl confirmed my worst suspicions: the sign was referring to used toilet paper. Fortunately, most of the bins were empty, seemingly indicating that common sense had prevailed for the most part, and that my fellow participants were continuing to disobey the sign and instead ‘flush paper towels’.   Unfortunately, only most of the bins were empty.

Most Dangerous Animal: The giant, life-sized iron statue of a woolly mammoth at the open-air Khanty-Mansiysk museum.  Despite being extinct for over 10,000 years, this dead animal succeeded in piercing my shoulder with its tusk, leaving me unable to lift my arm for the rest of the day.  Mammoth-Smerdon, 1-0.

Best Guide: Our Aussie team translator, Anastasia.  Not only did she negate all our language difficulties, she was also on hand for all sorts of odd and unreasonable requests, always completed with a smile and without complaint.  Over the two weeks, for example, Anastasia bought us three pairs of earplugs, antibiotics and nasal sprays, found us a “nice local pub that will let us be noisy” for a team meal, and booked a plush restaurant for a romantic anniversary dinner between two players who weren’t even in our team.

Best Captain: None other than our own long-serving Australian captain, Manuel Weeks.  I could rattle off numerous arguments for, but Manuel wins simply because of the number of players from other countries who offered to pay good money to steal him as captain.

Most Optimistic Captain: The Nigerian men’s captain, who offered Manuel a 2-2 draw before our final round match (which we won 4-0).  Still, he along with the entire Nigerian squad were perhaps the best-spirited of the teams we played, and were fantastic sports at the end of the match.

Best Olympiad for Food: This one.  Ironic, seeing as my good Norwegian friend Kjetil Lie didn’t come because he thought he’d starve.  The 150 chefs shipped in from Leningrad did an unbelievably amazing job.  I tilt my Russian furry hat to you all.

Stupidest Siberian haircut: Mine.  It may have been 45 degrees with 95% humidity in Dubai, but shaving my head bald right before a trip to the Gulag in Autumn was not my smartest move.

Best ‘Hotel Olympisky’ Feature: The futuristic showers.  While they didn’t exactly gel with the rest of the room decor, they were an amazing novelty that didn’t grow old over the fortnight.  Tri-directional spray?  Yes, please!

Best Siberian Bargain: All round, Khanty-Mansiysk was very affordable (although, thanks to our gourmet hotel chefs, we didn’t feel the need to eat out very often).  But one item was far cheaper than back home: the vodka.  Known brands for $10 a bottle; local Siberian favourites for $5; and the really budget stuff for shrapnel.  Useful for cleaning car engines and disinfecting small wounds, but not much else.

2010 Olympiad Prince (or “Most Popular Male”): Dusko Pavasovic.  The muscular Slovenian Grandmaster with the chiselled features and winning smile was an absolute hit with the ladies…but Dusko’s amazing mastery of the 2.c3 Sicilian made him an even bigger hit with the men!

2010 Olympiad Princess (or “Most Outlandishly Dressed Female”): Anna Sharevich, women’s Grandmaster and top-board for Belarus. Despite the freeze, Anna somehow managed to dress every day as if she was heading to the beach.  And that peroxide hair and fake tan seemed more at home on the MTV channels that blasted from the mounted screens than in the chess dining halls themselves.  Think a 2200-rated Paris Hilton.

Best-Dressed Male: A style-split tie between Norwegian Grandmaster (and women’s team captain) Leif Johannessen, and English star Grandmaster David Howell.  Very different styles, but unilaterally acknowledged by the females (and more comfortable males) of the Olympiad to be the two most fashionable blokes.  Think a younger Richard Gere and a mixed-race Jared Leto.

Best Dancer: Former investment banker, English Grandmater Luke McShane.  His style may be slightly eccentric and require a good two-metre radius for safety reasons, but Luke undeniably shone out as the most popular whirling dervish the Bermuda Party dance-floor had ever seen.  After man decades in the hands of that other great English chess dancer, Jonathan Speelman, the mantle of Best Olympiad Dancer stays firmly in England’s grasp.

Most Dangerous Australian Team Adversary: The Siberian Flu that ravaged the majority of our team throughout the event, fortunately (unfortunately?) only catching me on the last day and the subsequent trip home.

Most Bizarre Flu Remedy: Tina Kopinits from Austria introduced me to what she believes is “a traditional Russian cold and flu remedy”, although I really only saw the Austrians drinking it.  Vodka, mixed with pepper, chilli and honey.  Makes our honey-and-lemon drinks seem kind of soft.

Best-Timed Birthday: A three-way tie between Australians Leonid Sandler and Giang Nguyen, and Englishwoman Sarah Hegarty (who came a close runner-up for most outlandishly dressed female); all celebrated their birthdays with the Australian team during the Olympiad.

Stud of the Olympiad: As mentioned by the Closet Grandmaster, it’s none other than our own Aussie Jamie Kenmure.  Never before have I seen this wiry ‘ranga with the enigmatically devious smile so successful with the ladies.  That curly orange hair was not only considered rare and exotic by the Siberian females, but also made him easy to spot around the chess hall, where we would invariably see him engrossed in deep, spirited conversation with yet another striking Soviet beauty.  Not only popular with the fairer sex, Jamie also was spotted in various photo ops with high-ranking chess dignitaries, and took part in a celebrity consultation chess match with former World Champions Anatoly Karpov and Gary Kasparov.  He was even interviewed by the local television station, where he gave his views on Russian women and his standing with them – now a YouTube hit, I’m told.  Not surprisingly, Jamie tells me he’ll be heading back to Russia shortly.

Most Budget “Non-Budget” Airline: Utair.  While I can’t of course complain seeing as the charter flights for players were free, the seven hour charter from Dubai to Khanty-Mansiysk was not what I would call travelling in comfort.  No videos, no audio, no magazines or indeed any correspondence in English, no seating plan, a bizarre culinary option and less leg room than a Tiger Airways flight made for an interesting journey.  Thankfully, for me it wasn’t too bad at all – see the final award below.

Best Roommate: Zong-Yuan Zhao, for yet another tournament.  Though on the surface we don’t have anything in common besides chess, we’ve built up a productive roommate relationship over many years of competitions.  And when you’re talking about two weeks in Siberia, nothing could be more important to one’s performance.  I may prefer dance music, push-ups and beer to Yuan’s flute, meditation and mandarin movies, but somehow it all seems to work.  Plus, having him look over your shoulder and give advice during chess preparation is far more useful than any chess book or computer.  An ELO-gainer in panda form.

Best Girlfriend: Fi.  Not only is she a fantastic travel companion, booking hotels and restaurants and even on occasion doing my hand washing, but she got me the most amazingly useful present for my birthday a few days before the Olympiad:  noise-cancelling headphones and an MP3 player.  This made the charter flights fly by (so to speak), and helped me relax during Yuan’s nightly Mandarin Movie screenings.  (I’m not sure if publicly complimenting your girlfriend on the internet wins or loses you brownie points, but men, I’ll let you know…)

That’s all for this year’s awards.  But don’t feel saddened by the fact that Istanbul 2012 is a good two years’ away – there will be more awards (again arbitrary and completely at my discretion) for the 2011 Oceania Zonal Championships in January.  And perhaps a bit more focus on chess-free matters in the interim, Tournament-B style.