Says Charwayne Walker
Guyana’s national chess team did remarkably well on debut at the World Chess Olympiad in 1978 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
According to sports writer Fred Watson, Guyana was the only team to score 4-0 victories on three occasions.
The Guyana team comprised Maurice Broomes, Gordon Broomes, Patrick
Wharton, Edan Warsali and Colin Broomes as reserve.
Mannie Ramoa, Secretary of the newly formed Guyana Chess Federation was the non-playing captain.
The team did well to finish at the top of the English speaking Caribbean countries by accumulating 27 points, placing 43rd out of 66 countries.
Some of the countries to finish below Guyana were Belgium, Ecuador, Bolivia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jordan, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Libya and the U.S Virgin Islands.
Guyana registered their first 4-0 victory over Andorra in the third round and the second when the team of Gordon Broomes, Warsali and Colin Broomes, who was appearing for the first
time in the tournament blanked Morocco in the sixth round.
The final 4-0 victory was over Bermuda to become the only team among the 66 participants to win by the maximum margin on
three occasions. It was the first time Guyana was participating at the Olympiads and considering this they did remarkably well.
Two years later Guyana attended its second Olympiad, the 1980 Malta Olympiad.
Guyana’s five-member chess team amassed 262 points to finished 54th out of 82 countries.
Guyana played some 14 countries and defeated Libya, Guernsey Island. Zaire, Japan, Luxemburg and
The United Arab Emirates. The number one seed, the Soviet Union, took top honors with 39 points followed by Hungary also on 39 points. However, the Soviet Union won after the tie breaker.
In the third position was Yugoslavia with 35 points followed by the USA with 34 points Slovakia, 33 points England and Poland 31 ½ points, Canada and Israel 32 points and Cuba
Netherlands, Romania and Sweden on 31 ½ points.
National Master Maurice Broomes was the most outstanding player for Guyana. He accumulated 8 ½ points from his 14 matches while his younger brother Gordon Broomes ended on seven and one half points. Ronald Austin was next on 5 ½ points while Patrick Wharton and John Macedo, the team captain, contributed 2 ½ points. Commenting on the team’s Performance Maurice Broomes who was also the manager said he was impressed with the
display of Austin and young Broomes who really showed tremendous technique against some of the world’s top chess players. He was, however, disappointed with the performance of Wharton whom he said was badly off form.
“If Wharton was striking we could have done much better,” he said at the time.
One of the more disappointing matches for Guyana was against Puerto Rico where they went down 2 –
1.“We should have won against Puerto Rice but our players were not striking,” Maurice Broomes said.
He also said that one of his memorable games was against International Master Slim Bouaziz at Tunisia whom he defeated.
Bouaziz had gotten the better of Maurice Broomes at the 1978 Olympiad in Argentina.
Despite losing to New Zealand who were seeded 25th after the final count Guyana seeded 64th were able to secure 54th place to New Zealand’s 57th.
Other Caribbean countries participating included Trinidad & Tobago who placed 49th with 27 ½ points while Jamaica was 60th with 25 and ½ points.
