FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 31, 1999
Press Release #3
WORLD CHESS FEDERATION PRESIDENT GIVES LAS VEGAS PRESS CONFERENCE
On Saturday, July 31, at 3:30 p.m., the President of the World Chess Federation (known as FIDE) gave a press conference in Caesars Palace, Las Vegas. In a nearby ballroom, 100 top chessplayers from around the world were making their first moves in the 1999 World Chess Championship. These players are competing in a month-long knockout tournament with a $3 million prize fund—including $660,000 to the winner.
FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, seated with U.S. Chess Federation (USCF) President Don Schultz, USCF Executive Director Michael Cavallo, and other officials, greeted a packed room of over 100 international journalists.
Ilyumzhinov announced that bids are open for the 2000 World Chess Championship. Candidate sites include Hong Kong, South City in South Africa, and Dortmund, Germany. The decision will be made on November 20 at a meeting of the FIDE Presidential Board in Paris. The 2002 Chess Olympiad, involving the 158 member countries of FIDE, will be held in Slovenia (formerly part of Yugoslavia).
The FIDE President then dropped a blockbuster: according to Ilyumzhinov, chess will be a demonstration sport at the Sydney Summer Olympic Games in 2002. Just last month, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced that FIDE had been awarded the status of International Sports Federation--recognizing FIDE’s authority to govern international chess.
The exciting chess games in Las Vegas are being broadcast live on the Internet. Chess fans around the world are following the moves at the U.S. Chess Federation Web site, uschess.org.
Among the 100 players are nine Americans: current U.S. Champion Nick de Firmian, Joel Benjamin, Boris Gulko, Dimitry Gurevich, Alexander Ivanov, Gata Kamsky, Sergey Kudrin, Tal Shaked, and Alexander Yermolinsky.
The top seeds in the World Chess Championship are Vladimir Kramnik of Russia and Alexei Shirov of Spain.
CONTACT: Timothy Hanke, Press Officer for the World Chess Championship, at 702-697-5800. Or call Caesars Palace at 702-731-7110, and ask for extensions 5913 through 5927.