The annual SA Junior team championships took place in Cape Town at the UCT Sports Hall from 4th to 7th January 2016. KZN was well represented by teams from the Ethekwini, Ilembe and Uthungulu districts. The first 2 days were extremely uncomfortable in the playing hall, thanks to a heat wave, and thousands of litres of water were consumed by the players. Western Province (the hosts) took most of the gold medals in the A division after 7 rounds of gruelling competition, winning gold in 5 of the 7 age categories. The exceptions were the under 8 category, won by Tshwane, and the under 14 category, won by Ethekwini. Here is a link to the
under 14 team results; the same page also lets you select other age group results that you may be interested in. The successful Ethekwini under 14 team was anchored by FIDE Masters Naseem Essa (left) and Cailin Chetty (right) on the top boards:
The writer was present as an arbiter for the team event. We all wore a high visibility red arbiters shirt and were kept very busy, mostly with illegal moves! I handled 63 illegal moves during the 7 rounds, as well as a variety of other incidents. In the photo, I'm listening to the Buffalo City team manager:
(photos selected from the Chess SA Facebook page)
