Uapingene at World Junior Chess Champs

A total of 48 countries will be competing in Pune, India as from 5 to 20 October for the prestigious World Junior Chess Championship title.

Namibia’s Uativi Jossy Uapingene is one of only four African players who are competing in the open section of this tournament alongside Mohamed Saim from Algeria, Mohammed Nader from Egypt and South Africa’s Reddy Ananta.

The tournament is open to Under 20 players from all over the world and includes a number of junior chess prodigies in the likes of China’s youngest Grand Master (GM), 14 year old Wei Yi, Russia’s GM Vladimir Fedoseev who tops the starting ranks with the highest world FIDE rating at the tournament and the Netherlands’ highest ranked junior player GM Robin van Kampen.

Eighteen players in this tournament have GM titles and more than a handful are chess prodigies who started playing the mental sport as early as the age of four. China’s Wei Yi for instance reached his GM level last year at the jaw-dropping age of 13.

Uapingene is however not worried about his highly ranked adversaries. He has been training hard these past months and says he is confident and ready to compete with any player from any country. The 2014 UNAM chess victor and third place runner-up at this year’s National Junior Closed Championship travelled to India for studies in August and has been preparing for the competition ever since.

Current Namibian junior champion, Immanuel Gariseb and second runner-up William Kamberipa could not travel to India for the tournament due to Grade 12 exams and so Uapingene as the third place qualifier is carrying the country’s flag in Pune instead.

Development Officer Charles Eichab of the Namibia Chess Federation said “this is yet another milestone for Namibian chess as this is the first time we have sent a player to the World Juniors. Namibia has been represented at three international events and one regional event this year alone not including two other international tournaments scheduled before the year ends.”

Eichab explained that this is all being done as part of the NCF’s long-term developmental strategy plans that will see Namibian players grow in strength from continued international exposure.