Yesterday, a press conference was held by Mayor of Şehitkamil Metin Özkarslı and Vice-President of the Turkish Chess Federation Tahsin Aktar to introduce the organization to the journalists in the tournament hall. Youth and Sports Director of Gaziantep also attended the press conference. Details can be found below.
World Youth Championship 2008 is being organized by Turkish Chess Federation and its honorable hosts Gaziantep Şehitkamil Municipality. Mayor of Şehitkamil Metin Özkarslı and Vice-President of Turkish Chess Federation Tahsin Aktar and Gaziantep Youth and Sports Director Nuri Öcal appeared before the press to introduce the 2008 World Junior Championship.
First to take the floor was Mayor Özkarslı. Özkarslı "Organizing such an important event is boosting anyone in Gaziantep. We have an opportunity to advertise our city to Turkey and to the world. We want make investment to every field in sports.We already have a world champion in taekwondo from Gaziantep. We also have a chess team competing in Turkish Clubs Championship [second league] and we organize regular chess courses in Atatürk Sports and Cultural Complex. I would like to thank FIDE and TCF who enabled us to introduce our wonderful city to the world."
Özkarslı also introduced the history of the world junior championship mentioning that big world champions like Kasparov and Karpov were also world junior champions.
Then, Nuri Öcal, the Youth and Sports Director of Gaziantep took the floor and stated "The condition of local sports in Gaziantep is already very good. Organizing such an important chess tournament is making us proud of our city." He also explained some of the major successes by athletes from Gaziantep.
Tahsin Aktar, Vice-President of Turkish Chess Federation and the General Coordinator of the event took floor. He explained the status of Turkish Chess Federation in the world and then he stated "With such dedicated local administrator to sports, any federation can organize such beautiful events." Then he talked about the championship in general and explained how prestigious the World Junior Championship is.
"Some legends in chess such as Karpov and Kasparov, the reigning world champion Anand have already won the World Junior Championship title. You might see future world champions in this championship. "
Local players from Şehitkamil, Gaziantep posing with the Mayor Özkarslı, TCF Vice-President Aktar and Youth and Sports Director Öcal
He also informed the journalists about the World Schools Championship which just finished in Singapore. He explained that Two players from Turkey, Vahap Şanal (gold in under 11), and Batuhan Daştan (under 11) won gold and bronze medals and Turkey won gold medal as a team in under 11 and bronze in under 13. Yesterday, the two youngsters appeared on some TV channels and national newspapers.
An exhibition game between a member of the team and the Mayor of Şehitkamil (a central province of Gaziantep centrum). The result of the game is quite forseeable for chess players: a peaceful draw!
