Malawi misses World Schools Chess slot

Malawi will not compete at this year’s World Schools Chess Championship following the failure by its youngsters to qualify.

At the weekend, 15 local junior players took part in the African Online qualifiers, involving over 100 players from nine countries on the continent.

Two of Malawi’s young representatives – Shrey Girish Kamath and Lucie Chimeta – missed qualification by a whisker after ending on second position in their respective under-17 and under-9 girls sections.

Shrey finished with 6.5/9 points while Lucie finished with 5/7 points.

Apparently, organisers of the qualifiers, the African Chess Confederation (ACC) was only looking for the top performers in each of the 10 available groups.

Nevertheless, Chess Association of Malawi (CHESSAM) Publicity Secretary, Francisco Mwangupili, is describing the local players’ performance as encouraging despite failure to qualify.

“We congratulate the players for their exceptional performance. Apart from Shrey and Lucie, we also recognise Priyasha Shriyan for putting up a good fight and accumulating 6/9 points in the U17 girls section and ranking number 6 out of 18.” Highlighted the CHESSAM spokesperson.

He added that; “overall, CHESSAM is proud of the Malawian youth for their performance in the tournament and hope that their participation will inspire more young people in Malawi to take up chess and participate in future tournaments.”

All the Malawian players that participated include; Gracious Chisoni, Alipo Namangale, Marceau Loiseau, Prince Leston Mulli, Jayan Nair Kasinath, Favour Mbale, Yewo Sanga, Baruch Kaotcha, Jessie Chinthambi, Faith Kamanga, Miranda Mwafulirwa, and Terryce Malema.

The 2023 World Schools Chess Championship is scheduled to take place in Rhodes, Greece from 13 to 23 April.