KARLOVICH: Señoras y señores, permítanme invitarles a la conferencia de prensa con los miembros del equipo internacional de jugadores de ajedrez con discapacidades físicas (IPCA). Permítanme presentarles al primer tablero del equipo Obodchuk Andrei y el capitán del equipo, Zbigniew Pilimon.

Mi primera pregunta es sobre la propia organización: ¿Cuándo se fundó? ¿Cuáles son sus objetivos principales? Podría, por favor, contarnos un poco más acerca de su equipo, que juega en la Olimpiada.

OBODCHUK: Nuestra organización fue fundada en 1992 por checo discapacitado, un jugador de ajedrez Irzhi Ulman. Desafortunadamente, él murió. Después organizadores polacos continuaron con su actividad en la Asociación: Bogdan y Tadeusz Biluchik - Usuarios de sillas de ruedas con severas formas de miopatía, pero también han fallecido.

Recientemente, cuando estábamos en el Campeonato del Mundo para los ajedrecistas con discapacidad física en Polonia, fuimos a visitar y honrar a sus tumbas allí. Expresamos nuestro agradecimiento a la FIDE por darnos esta oportunidad de participar en las Olimpiadas de Ajedrez. La primera Olimpiada en la que participamos fue la Olimpiada de Ajedrez en Bled 2002.

No sólo en nombre de las personas con capacidad reducida del sistema músculo-esquelético, sino también de aquellos que tienen problemas de la vista y el oído - Yo cordialmente agradezco esta oportunidad, entendemos que éstos son gastos importantes, pero para todos los miembros de nuestro equipo es una verdadera celebración.

KARLOVICH: Cuéntanos sobre el equipo en sí y sobre su rendimiento en la Olimpiada hasta el momento.

OBODCHUK: Nuestro equipo se llama "Asociación Internacional de Personas con Discapacidad Física". Es sabido que estamos haciendo todo lo posible para jugar bien. De hecho, hay un jugador de ajedrez extremadamente decente, IM Stanislav Mikheev, que en realidad es el mejor jugador en su tablero, hasta el momento tiene 6,5 puntos sobre 7. Estoy jugando en el primer tablero y también soy un campeón interino de nuestro Campeonato del Mundo de Ajedrez para jugadores de ajedrez con discapacidad.

KARLOVICH: Tell us please about your own results in the Olympiad?

OBODCHUK: Probably, you have heard that, I managed to defeat such a strong chess player as Emil Sutovsky from Israel. I understand that there was a big part of luck, when my opponent sacrificed a piece at one point and couldn’t find the way to continue his attack. And of course, I was trying my best to make it difficult for him. At the moment I have 50% of result on my first board.

KARLOVICH: Tell us, please, since when your team started to participate in the Olympiads and about your best result in the Olympiad.

OBODCHUK: Well, as I have mentioned already, our team started to participate in Olympiads starting from 2002 in Bled, after that time we don’t miss any Olympiad. As to the best results, it’s necessary to mention Khanty-Mansiysk Olympiad in 2010 – our team got 64th place- not an amazing result, but taking into consideration that German team was at 65th place – we were quite successful.

KARLOVICH: Tell us about the members of your organization, and the federations that are in your association. What are the problems that your association faces?

OBODCHUK: There are federations of more than 20 countries in our Association; these problem is that federations don’t have any special additional funding. So usually the procedure is like this: we find a country and federation which are ready to organize the Chess Championship, and afterwards chess players pay for their participation, tickets etc. themselves (on volunteer basis).

We are very satisfied, that recently we had participants from India, here in the Olympiad people from Japan, Palestine express their interest in joining our Organization. There is more and more interest towards our Organization.

Of course, we badly need both financial and moral support. I would repeat myself, if I tell once again that we are very grateful for the Organizing Committee of the Olympiad, but you know, many members of the team have really severe diseases, they are on wheel-chairs, so they need assistance, and the rooms they have are not enough for them. So this is one of the problems that we are facing.

We are indeed an International team – our Men’s team consists of one Italian, Czech, Ukrainian and 2 Russian chess players. And people, who accompany them, have to cover their expenses themselves, and it’s quite a heavy financial burden.

KARLOVICH: Our last question is about young talented chess players in your Association. Can you tell us more about them and about their achievements?

OBODCHUK: We have lots of perspective talented players, for instance, we have one Polish chess player Lucasz Novak, he can only move his head and their parents are moving pieces on the board for him.

We have other talented players from Russia as well. Especially, I would like to mention 2 young (13 and 14 years old correspondingly) boys: Grisha Doronkin and Andrew Tersentsev – they almost can’t move themselves, nevertheless they play on a very good level – they are fulfilling their CM titles.

Unfortunately, we have not so many women chess players in our Organization, but we have a very gifted player in our team – Nikola Konkalova from Slovakia.

KARLOVICH: Thank you for your answers, we wish you good luck in your further performance in the Olympiad.