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Editor: Dr Tim Harding
      

CC Olympiad XV Final: our games finally finished

After almost three years play, the Irish team's last game ended today. Sadly, top board Gary Windebank missed the IM norm by half a point after defending his last game for a year in a poor position. Boards 1 and 4 are finished and only a handful of games remain in play on other boards.

We did not enter a team for the 16th Olympiad Preliminaries as our strongest players were all involved in the Final, but we hope to have a strong team again in the 17th Olympaid preliminaries, due to start some time in 2009.

With 36 points, we are in joint ninth place with Lithuania and cannot finish lower than tenth out of fourteen teams. This is quite respectable in view of the size of the country and the quite small number of players available to us. Among the countries finishing below us will be the USA.

Windebank drew with the world's top-rated grandmaster, J. J. van Oosterom. He also drew with another former world champion, Tunc Hamarat. Desmond Taylor drew with another world champion, Gert Jan Timmerman, and had a fine win against high-rated GM Joachim Neumann of Germany.

The CC Olympiad 15 Final was played on the ICCF webserver, having started on 30 March, 2006. Ireland qualified for the final, the first time this country ever achieved that distinction. Qualifying for this event was the best performance ever by any Irish CC team.

For the full picture of the event, see the ICCF webserver.

Our team is (in rating, and board, order): Garry Windebank, Alan Ludgate, Desmond Taylor, Darrell Nightingale, Dr Eugene Gibney and Tim Harding (captain).

In the 7th European Team Championship preliminaries, where our second team is having a hard time, Ciaran O'Hare (on board two) has earned his first IM norm. Congratulations!

Scoreboard for the Irish olympiad team:
Ireland KAZ POL EST LTU GER LAT SLO POR AUT USA NOR NED RUS Pts.
Windebank
 ½ ½ 0 ½ 0 ½ 0 0 ½ ½ 0 ½ 0 3½
Taylor
 ½ ½ ½ ½ 1 ½ 1 0 ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 7
Ludgate
 ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 0 1 ½ ½ ½ 6½
Nightingale
 ½ ½ 1 ½ ½ 1 ½ ½ 1 ½ ½ ½ ½ 8
Gibney
 ½ 1 ½ ½ 0 ½ 0 ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 0 5½
Harding
 1 ½ ½ 0 ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 0 0 ½ ½ 5½
TOTALS 3½ 3½ 3 2½ 2½ 3½ 2½ 2 3 3 2 3 2 36

We have another page showing how Ireland qualified from the Preliminaries.

Sadly our board 6 player from that round, Michael J. Sheehan, died in January 2006 after losing his battle with cancer. Jonathan O'Connor, who had our best result in the preliminaries, declared himself unavailable for the Final.