Lo­cal ju­nior chess play­ers ex­celled at the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Youth Chess Fes­ti­val win­ning six medals—two gold, two sil­ver, two bronze—at the event proud­ly host­ed by T&T at the Cas­ca­dia Ho­tel, St Ann’s, from Au­gust 21 -26.

Adri­an Al­lum and Kael Samuel Bis­nath were the gold medal­lists, Caleb Har­ry and Alexan­dra Ku­mar each won sil­ver, and the bronze medal­lists were Nicholas Mc Letchie and Joshua Med­i­na at the tour­na­ment which boast­ed 230 play­ers from 15 coun­tries in­clud­ing Ja­maica, Bar­ba­dos, Cu­ba, Guatemala, Cos­ta Ri­ca, Hon­duras, Guyana, Suri­name, The Ba­hamas, Haiti, St Lu­cia, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, and Pana­ma and the host coun­try.

Samuel Bis­nath topped the Open U-14 cat­e­go­ry and Al­lum, nine, was crowned Un­der-10 cham­pi­on while McLetchie placed third. Har­ry and Ku­mar fin­ished sec­ond in the U-8 Open and U-12 Fe­male cat­e­gories, re­spec­tive­ly, and Med­i­na placed third in the U-16 Open com­pe­ti­tion. Their ef­forts, plac­ing in the top five in each cat­e­go­ry con­tributed to T&T cop­ping the sec­ond-place coun­try prize be­hind Ja­maica and ahead of Cu­ba.

Each of these play­ers will ob­tain a con­di­tion­al ti­tle (Can­di­date Mas­ter, Woman Can­di­date Mas­ter, or FIDE Mas­ter de­pend­ing on the cat­e­go­ry). The ti­tle will on­ly be con­firmed by the FIDE Qual­i­fi­ca­tion Com­mis­sion (QC) once a cer­tain rat­ing is at­tained.

T&T Chess As­so­ci­a­tion (TTCA) pres­i­dent Son­ja John­son was heart­ened by the per­for­mance of the na­tion­al team at the CAC Youth Chess Fes­ti­val.

She said, “Words can hard­ly ex­press how hap­py we are as the TTCA to see our vi­sion for this event be­come a re­al­i­ty. We have re­ceived so many com­pli­ments about the tour­na­ment, the con­di­tions, the hos­pi­tal­i­ty, and the thought­ful de­tails which all re­sult­ed in an event to make all par­tic­i­pants com­fort­able and ready to par­tic­i­pate in this event in 2024.

“Apart from the ac­tu­al event, the ic­ing on the cake was the two gold, two sil­ver and two bronze medals T&T ob­tained which is the best show­ing by Team T&T dur­ing any edi­tion of the CAC Youth Chess Fes­ti­val. The re­sults clear­ly show that the fu­ture of chess in T&T is bright, and we are ex­treme­ly proud of all of our youth chess play­ers.”

Dur­ing the week of the event, par­tic­i­pants, par­ents, and coach­es were al­so treat­ed to a lec­ture by Leon­txo Gar­cia, Span­ish jour­nal­ist, and spe­cial­ist in the area of Chess in Ed­u­ca­tion last week Wednes­day. Those present re­al­ly were im­pressed by his knowl­edge and the sta­tis­tics from the var­i­ous stud­ies on the ben­e­fits of chess in ed­u­ca­tion. He al­so held a call with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cials to present the var­i­ous cas­es where chess has been used as part of the cur­ricu­lum as well as the ben­e­fits of us­ing chess as a ped­a­gog­i­cal tool.

The tour­na­ment could not run with­out its var­i­ous of­fi­cials. The chief ar­biter was In­ter­na­tion­al Ar­biter, IA Is­mael So­to (Puer­to Ri­co). He was sup­port­ed by Deputy Chief Ar­biters: Na­tion­al Ar­biter (NA) Sadiqah Razark and FIDE Ar­biter (FA) Rod­er­ick Noel. Oth­er sec­tion na­tion­al ar­biters in­clud­ed Keevin James, Sean Nedd (To­ba­go), Za­akir Razark, FM Ryan Harp­er, NA TrisAnn Richards (St Lu­cia), An­gel Pride (Ba­hamas) and Joel Bernard (Haiti). As­sis­tant ar­biters were CM Sean Year­wood and Kay­la Mar­tin.

The Chief Or­gan­is­er for the event was the very ex­pe­ri­enced TTCA sec­re­tary Sandy Razark, who was ac­tive­ly sup­port­ed by TTCA trea­sur­er Kee­lan Hunte, TTCA third vice pres­i­dent Sadiqah Razark and the TTCA pres­i­dent, TTCA first vice pres­i­dent Frank Sears and TTCA trustee Shelly-Ann Ramkissoon, dur­ing the event.

Oth­er mem­bers of the team on the ground were De­bra Wal­cott, Do­minic Wal­cott, John Gillette, Lynette Gillette, and Nanieno La Fleur. TTCA PRO, Gabriel­la John­son, served as MC for the clos­ing cer­e­mo­ny. Savon Sama as­sist­ed with the as­sem­bly of the unique and beau­ti­ful coun­try tro­phies, de­signed by Sandy Razark, which fea­tured the na­tion­al in­stru­ment, the steel pan.

Sup­port­ing the event was the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter of T&T Sport and Cul­tur­al Fund, the prin­ci­pal spon­sor, the Massy Foun­da­tion, the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of T&T, and Blue Wa­ters.

Patrice Charles, as­sis­tant di­rec­tor of Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion and Sport, brought re­marks at the open­ing and clos­ing cer­e­monies, on be­half of Min­is­ter of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Sham­fa Cud­joe.

Adele Rose, Massy Foun­da­tion man­ag­er, helped open the Fes­ti­val, bring­ing re­marks.

The TTCA al­so ex­pressed its ap­pre­ci­a­tion to Me­dia 22 Ltd, who came on board, though with late no­tice, and pro­vid­ed sup­port each day on the ground.