Breaking News: Africa Junior U20 Chess Championship Postponed

At the beginning of the year, the Africa Chess Confederation released the tournament program for the year 2019, and with a host of these events done and dusted, attention turns to the junior events on the continent.

There are a number of junior events that were planned for, among which was the Africa Junior Chess Championship.

The Under 20 event was slated for Zimbabwe at the turn of the year and on the FIDE website, but after discussing with the leaders of the Zimbabwe Chess Federation, Africa Chess Media was able to gather that the rights for hosting were retracted from them and given to Zambia in January.

The officials of the Zambia Chess Federation also confirmed to us that they were indeed offered the rights to host, but considering the events they already had planned for the year, they respectfully declined and the ACC has been in search of a host for the event
since February 2019.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
This means that:
1. The event slated for August 2019 has been postponed as seen in the above statement released by the ACC.
2. The new date will be determined by the new host nation.
3. The Africa Chess Confederation is in search of a host country for the said Junior event and are in talks with one.
4. Chess Federations within the African continent are invited to show an interest in organizing the said event.
5. The Africa Chess Confederation will do all they can to ensure that the said event is organized in the year 2019.

The Africa Junior U20 Championship is where the brightest young minds meet to test their knowledge of the sport and also build a reputation for themselves, just like players like GM Fawzy Adham of Egypt, IM David Silva of Angola, and many other juniors have done in the past.

We at Africa Chess Media will keep an eye on this story and update the continent on the latest information with regards to this and other continental events.