Vepa Myalikgulyev, 43, the national master of sports in chess, has been elected the new chairman of the Chess Federation of Turkmenistan (CFT). This decision was made by the participants of the conference held at the Specialized School of Chess and Drafts of the Main Department of Sports and Youth Policy of Ashgabat.
V. Myalikgulyev was unanimously elected head of the National Chess Federation for a new four-year term. In this post, he replaced Muratdurdy Khashaev, who headed the relevant public organization since February 2018.
The conference also elected a new Secretary General of the Chess Federation of Turkmenistan, who was a young chess coach, FIDE master Mergen Kakabaev.
The new head of the CFT began to show interest in chess as early as childhood. He was the champion of Turkmenistan among juniors under 16, 18 and 20 years old. More than once represented our country at the junior world and Asian championships. At one of these tournaments for the title of Asian champion among juniors under 16 in 1994 in Qatar, V. Myalikgulyev tied with the future world champion of 2004 according to FIDE Rustam Kasimdzhanov (Uzbekistan) and the future champion of Asia in 2003, grandmaster from India Krishnan Sashikiran. He also had the opportunity to “cross swords” with another future FIDE world champion (2002-2004) Ruslan Ponomarev (Ukraine) at the World Championship in Poland in 1997.
Vepa Myalikgulyev is a graduate of the Cambridge University Master's Program in Economic Development. During his studies, he played chess for the Cambridge University team. Currently working in the field of economic development in Turkmenistan, has personal entrepreneurial experience.
As V. Myalikgulyev told a GA correspondent, the plans of the new leadership of the CFT include creating conditions for improving the skills of Turkmen chess players and improving the results of the men's and women's teams at the World Chess Olympiads, the introduction of a national rating system, an increase in the number of mass the FIDE competition system, including online format, and the participation of our compatriots in rating international tournaments. An important point of the program is also the further development of children's and youth chess, since the role of chess and intellectual games in the development of cognitive and logical thinking in children and adolescents is already widely recognized throughout the world.
At the same time, the new head of the CFT in his work intends to develop digitalization of chess, its commercialization in order to hold new competitions at the expense of tournament fees of participants, use modern management methods within the Federation, promote this intellectual game, and develop cooperation within FIDE and with other international sports federations.
In this regard, the new chairman of the CFT is ready to discuss joint ways of developing chess with representatives of business and other public organizations and projects who are not indifferent to the fate of this sport in Turkmenistan.
