Here's some interesting archive Footage I was passed by Jon Manley. I can't embed it here, as far as I can see, but click on the link and watch the video - it's only three minutes of your time. Three quite interesting minutes.

Here's a familiar face, for instance. Hello Kirsan!

Kirsan was hosting the 1998 Olympiad, something of a disaster for the England team which was seeded second, but finished eleventh, a long way out of the medals. Here's two more familiar faces, belonging to Matthew Sadler, who played on the team, and Chris Ward, who captained it.


And here's a somewhat less familiar face. It belonged to Larissa Yudina, who was killed in Elista three months before the footage was taken, in an assassination linked to the owner of the first face in our series.


And here's a very familiar face indeed, albeit topped with a less familiar hair colour. He's talking [2:01-2:19] about whether the death of the journalist pictured above should prevent chessplayers competing in the event organised by the chap suspected of having her killed.


What Nigel says:

If you want to look very hard, you can find problems, human rights issues, in many many countries, so, er, I think, um, this is not, er, especially, ah, a big concern for us.

Now it's fair to say that Nigel has since reversed this view, and hence the immediate purpose of this posting isn't particularly to point the finger at Nigel. (Nor am I suggesting that the issues involved in boycotting or not boycotting chess events were, or are, at all straightforward.) But if it has a purpose, other than to draw your attention to some footage of historical interest, it's simply to raise once more a point quite often made in connection with early enthusiasm for Kirsan and his pot of money for chess. Which is...

...when somebody pops up out of nowhere offering to throw load of cash at chess, wouldn't it be better to check out their credentials first and think about the money second, rather than take the money first and think about the ethics when the money has run out?

A point quite often made. But perhaps not made quite often enough.

[Nigel Short index]