Chess Olympiad Budapest 2024: Live blog / Participants open / Participants women / Official song

The open team of Japan consists of FM Mirai Aoshima, IM Shinya Kojima, IM Ryosuke Nanjo, CM Thanh Tu Tran, and FM Kohei Yamada. This is the first Olympiad for FM Mirai Aoshima who comes with his highest ever ELO to the competition in Budapest. Yet, experience is also present at the team as IM Shinya Kojima and IM Ryosuke Nanjo will play their 9th Olympiad! The team is coached by the experienced GM Mihajlo Stojanovic.

Taro Shinoda, board member of the Chess Federation of Japan, commented for Chessdom, “The Open team is the strongest in our history, with all members being titleholders for the first time. Additionally, FM Aoshima Mirai is also a professional shogi player, making him the first professional shogi player to compete in the Olympiad.”

The women section of the team is composed of Kanako Kinoshita, Rikka Mitsuyama, WCM Azumi Sakai, Misaki Shibata, and Melody Lady Garcia Takayasu. Coach of the team is long term Chessdom.com editor GM Marian Petrov.

Japan at the Chess Olympiad 2024 in Budapest

The grueling selection process contained three phases and culminated in the final 3rd phase at the KCB Sports Club, Ruaraka. The final qualification stage had 11 players in both Open and Women’s sections, slugging it out over the weekends of 28th-30th January and 4th-6th February 2022. The best five players of each competition secured the spot in Kenya’s National Team for the 2022 Chess Olympiad. Popular: India teams for Chess Olympiad 2022 announced / Malawi determined Teams for Chess Olympiad 2022 / Sri Lanka Teams for Chess Olympiad 2022 announced

Kenya Team (Open Section):

1. Ben Nguku Namale
2. Githinji Hinga
3. Martin Njoroge
4. Oluka Robert Mcligeyo
5. Mukoko Issac
   Captain: CM Ben Magana
   

The Women’s Qualifiers event ended dramatically as WCM Joyce Nyaruai and WFM Mongeli Sasha qualified directly, leaving only three available spots behind. Four players had the same score of 6.5 points and the three names for Kenya’s Women’s 2022 team needed to be decided in playoffs which were played as a 3 rounds round-robin event.

The playoff worked well for Madelta Glenda and Mutisya Jully who took the first two places and booked their seats for Chennai, however, the two other players: Nicole Albright and Cynthia Obando Awino tied for the third place and needed to play the extra match. Even the two-round match with a time control of 5 mins + 3 sec between the two tied players didn’t determine the 5th player of Kenya’s team, but Cynthia Awino Obondo prevailed in the sudden death (Armageddon) to grab the last available spot for Olympiad. Related: German Team for 44th Chess Olympiad 2022 to be captained by Jan Gustafsson

Kenya Team (Women’s Section):

1. WCM Joyce Nyaruai Ndirangu
2. WFM Sasha Mongeli
3. Glenda Madelta
4. Jully Mutisya
5. Cynthia Awino Obondo
   Captain: Moses Andiwoh

To achieve more remarkable results at the Olympiad, Chess Kenya secured the coaching services of GM Marian Petrov (2462) from Bulgaria. Read more: Indian team starts preparations for 44th Chess Olympiad 2022 #TweetOftheDay / Boris Gelfand got an important role in Indian’s Team and believes they can go the distance at the 44th Chess Olympiad 2022

Final rankings – Kenya Qualifiers for Chess Olympiad 2022:

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Final rankings – Kenya Women’s Qualifiers for Chess Olympiad 2022: