By SHAMAOMA MUSONDA –
ZAMBIA simply had a bad day at the office at the ongoing 41st World Chess Olympiads in Tromso, Norway as both the men and women teams suffered embarrassing losses in Round-Six games.
The men who decided to rest its strongest player in International Master (IM) Stanley Chumfwa when up against world number-17 Spain, were cleaned 4-0 while the women with an unchanged line up found the going rough against World number-24 Argentine losing 3.5-0.5.
In the men’s  section, Zambia, who were Africa’s second highest placed team going into round-six, saw all four players come up against Grand Masters (GM) with IM Daniel Jere falling victim to Francisco Vallejo while IM Chitumbo Mwali who put up the strongest resistance still fell to David Guijarro.
The other two boards fell easily with FIDE Master (FM) Richmond Phiri losing to Salgado Lopez and at one time took as long as 20 minutes to make a move, a situation which got him into time trouble before losing while Chess Master (CM) Kelvin Chumfwa lost to Renie Vazquez Igarza for a 4-0 defeat.
Zambia remains on six points after six rounds and in the next round plays Thailand in games that sees Stanley restored to the team and should be one to recovery from this bitter loss.
On board-one Stanley was set to play Uaychai Kongsee while Jere would be up against Atippa Pornariyasombat with Chitumbo Mwali meeting Poompong Wiwatanadate and Kelvin getting the nod to play Ratchaphon Thanarotrung.
In the women’s section, Argentina was ruthless against the Zambians side which was winning on three boards before Linda Hamoonga salvaged a draw on Board-Three.
Zambia’s leader Lorita Mwango was beaten by IM Carolina Lujan before Constance Mbatha was checkmated by Woman Grand Master (WGM) Claudia Amura but Hamoonga managed to hold IM Marisa Zuriel to a stalemate before IM Ayelen Martinez downed Yvonne Saina.
The only comforting thing about the loss is that Hamoonga’s draw means that she has only one loss at the tournament, which came in the first round against Switzerland.
In the next game, the Zambian lasses, with a changed line-up, play Ecuador in another tight match that will pit Mwango against a GM in Carla Serrano while Mbatha played Jacqueline Bosch Garcia.
The dependable Hamoonga will be putting out her wits against Abigal Echeverria with new comer to the Olympiads Bwalya Kabamba up against Evelyn Romero.
Away from Zambia’s interest at the games, hosts Norway easily defeated Italy 3-1 but the world’s focus was a game between world number-one Magnus Carlsen and World number-Ttwo Fabiano Caruana which showed why the former is first rated.