Idman.biz
Azerbaijani grandmaster Eltaj Safarli hopes that the success of the national teams at the European Championship in Batumi will allow their team to compete for a medal at the World Chess Olympiad.
Eltaj Safarli, who won an individual gold medal as part of the Azerbaijani national team, voiced these thoughts in an interview with Idman.Biz.
It should be reminded that the Azerbaijani men's chess team won a silver medal at the continental championship held in Batumi. In the round before the last, Azerbaijani chess players won 2.5:1.5 over Ukraine and kept their chances for gold medals, but in the final round they lost to Serbia with a score of 1:3 and became the second in Europe.
"It is always nice to win a medal. If I am not mistaken, this is already the sixth medal of our national team. In general, the team's performance can be called at least good," Safarli said.
Touching on the defeat in the last round against the Serbs, the chess player said:
"In the last round, we were of course playing for a win. Unfortunately, it turned out this way, but I can say one thing - the guys put all their strength from the first round to the last. It later became known that to become a champion, we had to beat Serbia with a score of 3.5:0.5. This is very difficult against such a strong opponent," E. Safarli emphasized.
It should be noted that the first vice-president of the Azerbaijan Chess Federation, Faig Hasanov, had previously stated in an interview with Idman.Biz that 20 years ago he proposed changing the system for determining the winner in the event of a tie in points and taking into account the results of personal meetings first. In this case, the strategy in the match with Serbia could have been different, because our national team had already won over Ukraine.
However, Safarli did not want to comment on this issue:
"The main thing is to play well and show results. Let the organizers think about the point calculation. My opinion will not change anything here."
Touching on his individual success, the grandmaster noted that he did not consider this award the main goal:
"This is, of course, nice, but I accept this medal as an additional bonus. The main thing for me is the success of the Azerbaijani national team," he added.
According to Safarli, the Azerbaijani men's chess team, which won a medal for the first time in the last eight years, will be more confident before the Olympics thanks to this result.
"I hope that this medal will really give us confidence. Next year is the Olympics and we will try to perform decently and compete for medals," Eltaj Safarli concluded.
Teymur Tushiyev
