South Sudanese chess players were outperformed by their peers at the recently concluded Africa Individual Chess Games held in Nigeria’s Lagos city.
Deng Rihan, a Candidate Master for South Sudan Chess Federation, said in an interview on arrival of the four-member team from Nigeria in Juba on Thursday.
He said the lack of technological equipment like chess mega contributed to their opponents outshining them.
“We lack those tools that made us suffer in games, our opponents were able to read and analyze our game,” Rihan told journalists.
Rihan said that Nigeria participated with a big number of players which he said violated the international chess rules.
He said the South Sudan chess lacks a coach and requisite equipment to enable the team to compete with their well-equipped and trained peers in other African countries.
The chess games took place from September 18th till 27th.
South Sudan ranked number four in terms of performance out of 28 countries that participated in the tournament.
Peter Majur, a Federal Master Candidate, said that South Sudan competed well in the Africa Chess Championship.
He however, called on the national chess federation to be supported by the government to improve performances.
‘My message to the people of South Sudan, without your support the federation will not do something for us, I want us to join hands together to support our federation, at least in the next event we must do something positive,” said Majur.
Gong Thon Gong, Candidate Master, said the chess game is essential for peace building, as well as talent promotion in the country.
“Actually, chess is very good in so many ways especially in peace building, unity, talent promotion and so on, I am calling on the entire nation to support the federation so that we move to the next level,” said Gong.
“We have raised our flag higher, though we lack something, we have shown our talent to the world and we hope for the best next time,” Gong added.
Aduot Madit, the President for South Sudan Chess Federation, said he was delighted with the performance of his team.
“We have been monitoring their performance on different platform of chess, and we were really pleased with their performance,” said Aduot.
