23 November 2015
Andrey Filatov: We Hope to Repeat this Success at the Olympiad in Baku
RCF President discussed Euro-2015 and future plans with Kirill Zangalis.
An interview with RCF President Andrey Filatov was published in the Sport-Express newspaper. Head of Russian chess told about the success of our teams at the European Team Championship in Iceland, RCF's cooperation with Match TV, Chess in Museums project, and covered many other topics.
“I am very pleased with this result. While our women's team was very successful in the recent years, winning three Olympiads in a row and three European championships out of four, the results of our men's team were much more modest, despite its objective strength – Kramnik, Karjakin, Grischuk, and Svidler are regularly among the top ten players in the world. However, team competitions are always very special. Therefore I am very pleased that our boys finally showed their real strength. We hope to repeat this success at the next Olympiad in Baku.”
“Which match was the most memorable?”
“The victory of our women's team over the current world champions – Georgia. We managed to crush our direct rival 3.5-0.5. This was the key moment of the tournament. Also a draw with our eternal rivals – Ukraine – deserves special attention. The match was so tense that there were no draws.
“The most important match of the men's team was played with Hungary. It decided the fate of gold medals. Frankly speaking, I had no doubt in our double victory before the final round.”
“In Baku you are going to be the team captain. Presidents of chess federations rarely take this position...”
“I will become a head coach of the team after the New Year. This is by college profession, by the way. Watching our team during the championship, I noticed that we played in a relaxed manner, but still there was some room for improvement. In the penultimate round our men's team had a real chance to beat Armenia and win the gold with a round to spare. The performance of the women's team, on the other hand, was flawless.”
“Russian players produced many fine victories this year. Is there a tendency?”
“It is not a tendency, but a result of systematic and goal-oriented work of our strong team – players, coaches, doctors, RCF staff. Dozens of people were involved in creating conditions for these victories. It was a successful year indeed. Natalia Pogonina became the World Vice-Champion despite being 25th (!) highest rated player of the event. This is an outstanding achievement. Sergey Karjakin won a highly prestigious World Cup, defeating another Russian, Peter Svidler, in the final. Alexander Grischuk won the World Blitz Championship, and Ian Nepomniachtchi won the silver medal in the World Rapid Championship. So we have only one last goal to achieve – bring the chess crown back to Russia. In order to achieve this, we need to surpass Hou Yifan and Magnus Carlsen. Well, in March Moscow will host the Candidates tournament, and Karjakin and Svidler are expected to have decent chances.
