March of chess checked, mate, by debate over Olympic status
Should chess be included in the list of sports for London 2012?
By Nicky Campbell
January 4, 2007 12:00 AM
…These men against machine showdowns are gimmicky sponsor schmoozing sideshows but the goal of including chess in the London Olympics is, for many, a realistic endgame and the campaign is stepping up this year. The Chinese love it. The Turks love it. Lithuanians and Letts love it. Let’s have it in London. Mind you, I shudder to think how the press will react to the cost of all those pieces.
The next move for chess in Britain is to gain official recognition as a sport and thereby receive the concomitant status and funding. The IOC says it’s a sport, as do 150 countries worldwide. The World Chess Federation is the second-largest sporting association in the world, behind Fifa, but can anything be so termed if a computer can whoop your skinny ass at it?
I love my Apple Mac but fancy my chances against it over 6k, or in a frame of snooker. Isn’t sport about physical action and reaction? But, goes the argument, why not include the axons, dendrites and synapses of the brain within that definition? Give it some mental muscle, son.
Here is the full article.
I vote for Scrabble, Checkers, Chess, Monopoly and Risk for the Olympics in China… why excluded all those Risk players, the board is bigger and there are more pieces.
Erotic blog
no, Chess should not be Olympic.
Chess is a mindsport not a sport.
Hence nomatter how much we love the game, it has no place at the Olympics.
Allright this is OT, but I am following the Rilton Open. Have been rooting for a danish GM who was in shared 2nd place before todays round.
What happens ?! They agree on a draw at move 14 in his game !!
Old topic, I know, but it is so disappointing to see. I know that as a chess professional below the super GM level you might have to consider maximising your expected winnings from prize-money, but still..
In terms of any kind of long term Olympic participation, short draws is one issue that could be counted against chess being a sport.
I cant think of another Olympic sport where the participants can just decide to pack up and go home at any time they both agree to.
I am against all wars
thus I am against the war on drugs
thus I am against drug testing
thus I am happy for chess to never be in olympics.
One should not subject oneself to controls and loss of freedom for the simple reason to play in the olympics. the olympics is not a sufficiently good reason to give up freedom.
Remember Freedom is not just freedom. Freedom is the answer to all problems. that is because Freedom is Love and Love is God. Therefore do not abandon Freedom. Do not abandon God. Do not abandon Love.
I call on everyone to ABANDON WAR.
[1]
Chess is a ‘digital’ sport. Tennis is an ‘analog’ sport.
[2]
Generally, no sport should be in the Olympics unless Olympic gold is the pinnacle of that sport.
Thus the 100 meter dash is a great Olympic sport.
Tennis recently became an Olympic sport. Tennis should not be an Olympic sport, because winning Wimbledon (for instance) is far more prestigeous.
*** Kramnik’s WCChamp title is vastly more prestigeous than any Olympic chess title could ever be. Chess should not be an Olympic sport (except for gimmicky publicity perhaps).
I am tempted to say Basketball should not be an Olympic sport because the NBA title matters much more. However, the NBA is an American-only entity. It may be that most other countries do see the Olympic title as their pinnacle to strive for in basketball.
[3]
The chess tournaments called “Olympiads” are a different topic. I take it the essence of these tournaments is to pit countries against each other in friendly chess competition. These are good.
Regular Olympic competitions are between individuals, not between countries.
Gene Milener
http://CastleLong.com/
To be an Olympic Sport it needs to be good for Television. I think this will be the biggest difficulty..
@paulo
The meaning of “sport” today has clearly turned into something like
“Physical activity that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often engaged in competitively.”
Besides looking at the history of the Olympics, chess is surely not an olympic sport.
“I am against all wars
thus I am against the war on drugs
thus I am against drug testing
thus I am happy for chess to never be in Olympics.
One should not subject oneself to controls and loss of freedom for the simple reason to play in the Olympics. the Olympics is not a sufficiently good reason to give up freedom.”
Ok, this may be the most ridiculous rant on this blog yet…and that’s saying something. First, you don’t have the freedom to cheat and you don’t have the freedom to break the law, Olympics or not.
You are against ALL wars. If you are under the age of 13, I forgive your idealism. If you are over the age of 13, you are an idiot. People like Hitler, Stalin and all the rest counted on people like you to sit on their ass while they committed atrocities to attain power. If you are against a particular war (Iraq for instance), fine, then say so. But saying you are against all wars no matter the reason just shows you are uneducated. Besides, if you are against all wars, than you should be against chess since it is a metaphor for war and used at military academy’s to train future officers.
I said what I said my friend. Now please look more closely at what I said.
Jesus tells us that the solution to all problems is LOVE which is God. Do you think there is a problem that God could not solve? Then you are saying that LOVE could not solve that problem. Most people do not understand that FREEDOM IS LOVE AND LOVE IS FREEDOM. they are one and the same with GOD.
So you say that I am an idiot to say that God can solve a problem. Look more closely my friend. It is the absence of LOVE that starts wars.
It is obvious from your response that you have not experienced LOVE Freedom and God in your heart. And until you do experience Love in your heart you will continue to think that the solution to problems is WAR or Non Love.
Here is what to do. Every day as often as you can think of it feel as deep as you can feel the strong desire to experience true love and it will happen. You will then be convinced that Love is the solution to all problems. But until you experience true love you will disagree with me.
By the way the regular worldly love we have already experienced as love is not the true love of which I speak. It is but a tiny drop compared to the ocean of true love.
At the end of what one war in history did the 2 combatants embrace each other in love. NOT ONE. none. War only begets more war. Wars are fought to solve the problems of the previous wars. Wars simply spawn more wars. Hatred begets hatred.
The Holiest Place on Earth is where 2 ancient enemies have come to love each other. That Holy Place is inside of your Heart my friend NOT out on a Battlefield strewn with the blood of your brothers.
“So you say that I am an idiot to say that God can solve a problem. Look more closely my friend. It is the absence of LOVE that starts wars.”
My bad, I thought I was dealing with an idiot…I didn’t realize I was actually dealing with a troll. I was the foolish one who fed the troll so I’ll deal with the troll. GO AWAY TROLL! Stop spouting your foolishness on a chess blog and take it to the hippy website with the rest of the hippys who don’t know what they are talking about. It’s not LOVE to sit back and let evil destroy good people…it is cowardis. BE GONE TROLL!!!!
Save the God is LOVE argument. More wars have been waged in the name of GOD than for all the other reasons put together. If GOD is about love only, maybe you can all of the smiting he did in the old testiment. That whole 40 days of drowning everyone except Noah…that was pretty loving.
…er…anyway……viz-a-viz chess as an olympic sport.
quite happy for it to remain not one, but I take issue with the statement that computers can whip us. You say sports should be more physical than what chess is, but think about it. Chess is just physical enough. If a computer wants to beat me, let it move its own pieces…
Banjanx
NBA basketball is much less important than the Olympic Gold Medal. Especially as the NBA brand of basketball is less and less relevant.
Without the foreign players the league would fold.
A Schoolyard champion of NYC plays with more teamwork and much more fundamentals than the NBA’s nonsense theses days.
Chess is definitely a sport, but still may not belong in the Olympic games. And there are some current Olympic competitions that are definitely not sports … like figure skating. I admit that it is athletic, and very entertaining, but so is ballet and cheerleading!
Chess is NOT a sport! Look up “sport” in the dictionary. Chess is a game, not a sport. If you can’t understand that chess does not fit the definition of “sport,” then you are illiterate.