Alexander Ipatov: “I’m very proud to play for the Turkish national team”
The second press-conference was devoted to the National Turkish men teams and their goals and expectations for the Olympiad 2012.
Among the main participants were: Efstratios Grivas, coach of Turkish men team and Captain of National A Team of Turkish Federation, Alexander Ipatov, winner of Under 20 Chess Championship and Burak Firat, representative of B team.
As Efstratios Grivas has mentioned, the preparation to the Olympiad itself had started many years ago, when Turkish Federation formed the team, which could do her best to represent the country. The Captain hopes that the A team will manage to enter the list of 15 best teams, but the situation will be clear only during last two rounds.
Afterwards the Captain told a few words about new members of Turkish men team: Dragan Šolak and Alexander Ipatov. He assured that all players are on good terms with each other and feel very comfortable in the team, which gives them an opportunity to play well in the Olympiad.
Alexander Ipatov emphasized, that he is very proud to play for the Turkish national team, and told about his plans to attend Turkish classes in Ankara starting from November 2012. As a very ambitious player, Ipatov assured that, as a part of team, will fight for the top 15 and he will try not to lose to strong players.
As today Ipatov wasn’t playing, he enjoyed his experience of commenting the game of Turkish players together with Turkish commentator Can Erdoman on web-site playchess.com.
As an answer to a rather provocative question about changing Chess Federations for the 3rd time already, Ipatov told that he feels very comfortable playing for Turkish team and he has no intention to change it in the future.
Also players told about their uniform of excellent quality, which was provided by Turkish Federation.
Official website: http://www.chessolympiadistanbul.com
Does he speak Turkish?