For many year the International Olympic Committee have been very sceptical about the supporters of the intellectual sport who insist that this sport also requires the colossal physical exercise, wrote the newspaper ‘Sport day by day’.Convinced of the impossibility to find the way to the crowded summer games, he tried to promote chess to the White (Winter) Olympics. As far as the MOC Charter requires ‘the presence of snow or ice at the Olympic tournaments’, the ex-president of Kalmykia, with his characteristic wit, offered to play ‘the chess pieces filled with ice’.
Be that as it may, the intellectuals still compete on the separate chess Olympiads. Ilyumzhinov, however, do not lose hope. And, as practise shows, he always get what he wants. Especially as the number of the supporters of his idea increases in the ranks of the IOC every year.
