Beijing, September 8 (Xinhua) -- According to the China Chess Association, the 2021 FIR Network Chess Olympiad Team Tournament opened on the 8th in the top zone of the preliminary stage, and the Chinese national elephant team opened the journey of the National Elephant Network Olympiad with a wave of three consecutive victories.
The competition is divided into two stages: the preliminary round and the final. The preliminary stage begins on 20 August and is held in groups from low to high, with the winner advancing to the previous zone to continue the battle. As a seeded team, the Chinese team directly participated in the top zone competition that began on September 8. The 40 teams in the top zone are divided into four groups, and the Chinese team is in the same group as nine teams such as Kazakhstan and Armenia, and the top two in each group advance to the final stage of the competition.
The Chinese team sent elite players to this Olympiad, with male chess players Ding Liren, Wei Yi, Yu Yangyi and Bu Xiangzhi, female chess players Hou Yifan, Ju Wenjun, Lei Tingjie and Huang Qian, young male chess players Xu Zhixing and Wang Shijiao, and young female chess players Zhu Jiner and Ning Kaiyu. In the day's match, they beat Australia, Mongolia and Indonesia in one 5.5:0.5 and two 5:1 respectively to open a three-game winning streak.
Before the match, the Chinese team held a pre-war mobilization meeting at the Qingyuan Building in Hangzhou. The National Team Hangzhou Training Base, located here, is their venue for this competition. It is reported that the national team, which has been training at the Hangzhou base before, also played a football match between "post-80s" chess players and "post-90s" chess players the day before playing in the Olympic Games, and everyone was in a very good state.
National team coach Xu Jun said at the mobilization meeting that the history of the Chinese team participating in the Chess Olympiad has been more than 40 years, from a fledgling development to a world-recognized strong team, which has gone through a long and tortuous process. Compared with other strong teams, the advantage of the Chinese team is that the team strength is strong, and the advantages of collective research and mutual cooperation of teammates are particularly obvious.
On the 9th, the Chinese team will face Kazakhstan, Greece and Iran. The Top Zone Preliminary Round of this Olympiad will last until the 10th. The final stage will start on the 13th.
Source: Xinhua News Agency