Anastasiya KARLOVICH: Dear ladies and gentlemen, let me start our next press conference and welcome representatives of the Georgian team: captain of the men’s team Lasha Janjghava and players Merab Gagunashvili, Levan Pantsulaia and Tornike Sanikidze. My first question is how did you prepare to this Olympiad.

LASHA: We started our preparations one year ago. Our players were preparing individually, participating in many tournaments and we made the training camp for one week right before the Olympiad in Antalia.

LEVAN: The training camp was fantastic, we had sun, sea, the conditions were excellent.

KARLOVICH: You mention only sun and sea, what about chess?

A very important conference “Chess and Education” organized by the TCF and FIDE took place in Polat Renaissanse hotel in Istanbul on the 30th of August.

This initiative, sponsored by Rosneft which is a sponsor of FIDE Chess in Schools, will be followed by a series of such conferences in the future.

The conference was opened at 10:00 by FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov who addressed the full hall with the audience capacity up to 120 people with his speech on the enormous importance of teaching small kids to play chess and the interest of ministers of education in various countries in the Chess in Schools movement.

The chairman of FIDE CiS Ali Nihat Yazici took the floor and welcomed everybody to the conference.

The first of the series of FIDE Chess in Schools conferences “Chess and Education” sponsored by “Rosneft” was held today in Istanbul in Polat Renaissance hotel.

FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov opened the conference with his passionate speech dedicated to spread of chess in schools movement around the world.

FIDE CiS Commission Chairman Ali Nihat Yazici was present and took the floor after the FIDE President.

Ukraine, the defending champion defeated Qatar with a 3-1 score despite the loss by first board GM Vassily Ivanchuk to GM Mohamad Al-Modiahki. Ivanchuk was slightly better with black but he carelessly allowed the enemy queen to sneak into the back rank. Ivanchuk immediately resigned, declining attempts to seek compensation for the piece.

The United States bested Lithuania by 3,5-0,5 after Hikaru Nakamura finally broke down the stubborn resistance of Grecian GM Vidmantas Malisauskas in a marathon 107-moves long game. Hikaru once again proved why he is a cerebral assassin.

Azerbaijan had no difficulty dispatching their Irish opponents, however the young talent FM Ryan Rhys Griffiths managed to steal the only draw for his team in the game against the seasoned Azeri GM Rauf Mamedov.

Fabio Capello, one of the world's best football coaches, came to İstanbul to watch the game Fenerbahçe versus Spartak Moscow. He and his delegation visited the 40th World Chess Olympiad.

Capello, the coach of Russian national football team, was welcomed by FIDE Vice President and TCF President Ali Nihat Yazıcı and Berik Balgabaev, Assistant to the FIDE President.