World Junior Chess Championship for Disabled wraps up with a successful 3rd Edition
Finding strength with our moves. Supporting equality in sports. By Event Press Officer and Photographer: Dora L Martinez | dora@lensethics.org (L) FM Ilia Lipilin (RUS) wins the World Junior Champion Title for Players with Disabilities. | (R) CM Samarth Jagadish Rao (IND) wins 2nd Place. | Photo Copyright Dora L Martinez The World Junior Chess Championship for Players with Disabilities wraps up with a successful 3rd Edition! It’s been one week since the event wrapped up and the typical Press Release with results, a few pictures and a short recap of the event cannot do it justice. Getting to know the players, the families, supporters and the amazing staff and volunteers that helped make this event happen was an amazing experience. The event attracted media coverage from CNN, whose “The Good Stuff” documentary coverage will air later this month, sign up to receive updates regarding this CNN series at www.cnn.com/specials/us/the-good-stuff. During the event, Kien Lam also filmed his documentary which focuses on chess player Dariia Kudainazarova (Kyrgyzstan); we will provide his documentary release date when further details become available. Learn more about Kien on his blog https://whereandwander.com and at this CNN link: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/plane-wingwalker-washington. Media outlets have covered the event in English, Spanish, French and German languages. A huge hit with the players was a surprise appearance by WGM Jennifer Shahade who took some time to analyze their games — what an experience! Now, let’s get to the chess results! In the top five, FM Ilia Lipilin (RUS) retained his title as World Junior Champion for Players with Disabilities, CM Samarth Jagadish Rao (IND) was second, Maksim Petrov (RUS) came in 3rd place, Pranav Shankar (USA) finished 4th followed by Jarno Scheffner of Germany in 5th place. (L) Maksim Petrov (RUS) | (R) Pranav Shankar (USA) | Photo Copyright Dora L Martinez The ‘TEAM’ Places are: 1st Place Team Russia, 2nd Place Team Uganda, 3rd Place Team the United States of America. The list of individual results can be seen below. Final Standings: Country Name Total RUSSIA LIPILIN Ilia 6.5 INDIA RAO Samarth Jagadish 5.5 RUSSIA PETROV Maksim 5.0 USA SHANKAR Pranav 4.0 GERMANY SCHEFFNER Jarno 4.0 ECUADOR NEVAREZ CASTRO Andres Fernando 4.0 RUSSIA GORSHKOVA Sofia 4.0 UGANDA MBAZIIRA Wasswa Sharif 4.0 UGANDA MWESIGYE John Denis 4.0 RUSSIA KRASIVSKAIA Viktoriia 3.0 USA TRAN Nguyen 3.0 USA MUELLER Payton 3.0 KYRGYZSTAN KUDAINAZAROVA Dariia 2.5 GEORGIA TALIKADZE Leri 2.5 USA MILLER Anna 1.0 USA PILKINGTON Jacob 0.0 (L) Jarno Scheffner (GER) | (R) Andres Fernando Nevarez Castro (ECU) | Photo Copyright Dora L Martinez (L) Sofia Gorshkova (RUS) | (R) Wasswa Sharif Mbaziira (UGA) | Photo Copyright Dora L Martinez (L) John Denis Mwesigye (UGA) | (R) Viktoriia Krasivskaia (RUS) | Photo Copyright Dora L Martinez (L) Nguyen Tran (USA) | (R) Payton Mueller (USA) | Photo Copyright Dora L Martinez (L) Dariia Kudainazarova (KGZ) with her mom. | (R) Leri Talikadze (GEO) | Photo Copyright Dora L Martinez (L) Ana Miller (USA) | (R) Jacob Pilkington (USA) | Photo Copyright Dora L Martinez USA Player, Ana Miller and event organizer IO Beatriz Marinello sit down for a chat. This is an excerpt from the video chat. They both made a chess move for every question they asked during their conversation. (L) Event Organizer, IO Beatriz Marinello and (R) USA Player, Ana Miller sit down for a chat. | Video Still Copyright Dora L Martinez “What do you like about chess?” — Event Organizer, IO Beatriz Marinello “I like that everybody can play, that it’s not something that only boys can do or only people that do not have disabilities can do. It’s something that everyone can do, so thats why I love chess.” — USA Player, Ana Miller “Why did you organize this tournament?” — AM “In the beginning it was because I wanted to help my friend Grandmaster Thomas Luther. He told me that he wanted to do this tournament when we were on a trip in Africa and I told him that I would organize it for him. After I organized the first one, I fell in love with the tournament, the human aspects of the event. Chess is beautiful, but, when you see people that love chess so much and they’re willing to do anything to play; travel long distances, go to countries where people don’t speak their language and they have physical challenges or other challenges. They are willing to travel with their wheelchairs and their parents support them — that is something very special and I admire that. It’s important to understand that in life, it’s not all about you, it’s also about doing things for others. You may think I am helping others, but, I am also helping myself because it makes me happy to do this and it’s rewarding. It’s a tournament that makes me happy, let me put it that way.” — BM “Why did you come to this tournament?” — BM “I think that’s the reason I came to this tournament. I think it was so exciting to see a lot of people who use wheelchairs, like me, playing chess. I love chess, but, I don’t see a lot of people like me playing it. So, I think this is a really good opportunity to show everyone out there that we can also play chess, no matter who we are, what kind of disabilities we have. We can use that disability as an ability, especially when it comes to chess. Some parts of our bodies might not work, but our minds will and I think chess is a great way to prove it.” — AM “Chess builds confidence. It makes you feel like — Yeah! I can do this! I noticed that you are a very independent person.What don’t you like about how people may treat you? What annoys you? Is there anything that people do that you don’t appreciate when they see that you have a disability? — BM “A lot of people will just kind of stare. They might underestimate me. Some times I’m not allowed into certain parts of a building