First moves made to have chess classed as a sport

Press, 13 April 1989, Page 44

First moves made to have chess classed as a sport

By

BOB SCHUMACHER

The first moves to have chess recognised as a sport in New Zealand — rather than as a recreation or pastime — have been taken with most commissioners on the Hillary Commission agreeing that the game should be classified as a sport.

The chairman of the Hillary Commission, Sir Ronald Scott, said yesterday that he was in no doubt chess was a sport — “and one of the greatest sports in the world at that.” "I held a straw poll among my commission colleagues and the majority were in favour of chess as a sport. Like most New Zealanders I once thought chess didn’t qualify because there was no physical effort involved but I was privileged to be at the last world chess Olympiad in Greece and saw the intensity of competition among 120 countries. “There was the situation of a 12-year-old Algerian weighing about five stone hard at it across the board with an Uruguayan in his sixties and weighing about 18 stone.” Sir Ronald agreed with the sentiments expressed by Sir John Marshall, the president of the New Zealand Chess Association until his death last year. “Chess, like other sports, has a high physical ele-

ment, why should it have to be all muscle. “Sometimes we can become a bit narrow in our thinking of definitions and it becomes a matter of semantics. I don’t think we should be bound by terminology and I would like to help chess be transposed from a pastime or recreation to a sport. Definitions can work negatively as they have in this instance where one form has been excluded to the extent that it is deprived financial support,” Sir Ronald said. Official recognition of chess as a sport gained international backing earlier this year when the president of the International Olympic Committee, Juan Antonio Samaranch, declared chess was a sport. At the time he was meeting with the president of the World Chess Federation (F.1.D.E.), Florencio Campomanes, and discussions were about the possible inclusion of chess as an Olympic Games sport. “The first step is recognition of F.I.D.E. by the

1.0. C.,” Mr Samaranch said. F.I.D.E. was founded in 1924 when chess was on the programme for the eighth Olympic Games in Paris. However, lack of experience by F.I.D.E. officials and the inability to differentiate between professionals and amateurs led to chess being dropped. New Zealand’s top board player at the world team’s chess championship last year, Vernon Small, of Christchurch, welcomed the plans afoot with the words: “About time.” Small, only the second New Zealand-based player to receive an International Master rating, said he did not want to sound uncharitable, but the lack of funds available to chess, because it it had not been regarded as a sport, had hurt his pocket. Small has been to the last seven world Olympiads and he estimated that the first six trips had each cost him between $3OOO and $4OOO as well as lost job opportunities.

Last year cost Small about $12,000 as he spent eight months in Europe seeking strong international competition in preparation for the world championship and in an endeavour to qualify for the International Master rating which he achieved at the tournament.’

“I can’t remember one world Olympiad where some New Zealand players were not available because of the financial demands or their job situations. Players such as Murray Chandler and before him, Bob Wade, have been lost to England because the British association can offer so much more, not just in prizemoney but in number of top tournaments and appearance fees.” Small said that if chess was accepted as a sport and was eligible for Government funding through organisations such as the Hillary Commission it would be much easier to attract sponsors and could be recognised in schools as part of the sporting curriculum.