“All participants were finally honoured and granted their accolades for the thrilling games and emphatic displays. The Western Cape emerged as the top province.”
FOLLOWING “an intense mental temperament challenging week”, the SAPS National Chess Championship “rolled close the curtains with an elegant honorary gala dinner at the Horseshoe in Kimberley to honour its Kings and Queens”.
Police spokesperson Captain Sergio Kock yesterday paid tribute to the SAPS’s chess champions in a statement issued to the media, describing how the “the seniors and members were welcomed to this blissful event” and “commended for their strength and resilience throughout this competitive championship”.
“The chairperson of the SAPS Chess Association, Brigadier Slabbert, relayed a message of support to all participants for their relentless efforts, challenging and stretching their mental capacity for more than a week.
Slabbert subsequently made an official handover to the new chairperson, Sergeant Kediemetse Masilo from the Northern Cape, who will take over as the new national chairperson.
Achievement
Kock stated that the keynote address was delivered by Major-General Kers, who “from his resonating and eloquent speech quoted John Kemeny ‘It is the greatest achievement of a teacher to enable his students to surpass him/her’”.
“This exhilarating game brought together 140 players from nine provinces and head office, which saw them put their cognition, acumen and aptitude to the test all in quest of the prestigious trophies and bragging rights,” Kock went on to say.
“All participants were finally honoured and granted their accolades for the thrilling games and emphatic displays. The Western Cape emerged as the top province.”
“Chess remains a sport of strategy and tactics, neither age nor size matter, the biggest mistake will be to floccinaucinihilipilification (if you thought pronouncing this word is challenging, clearly you haven’t tried chess),” Kock added, wishing all members well “in their future endeavours and, like in chess, let their moves be strategic and tactical in checkmating crime”.
Earlier this week, the SAPS chess players competing in the national championships visited Letshego and Tshwarelela primary schools in Galeshewe, where they donated five chess boards to each school in a move to get the young pupils interested in the sport.
According to the police, this was an initiative inspired by the saying, “A child in sport is a child out of court” and came in the wake of 11-year-old Amahle Zenzile from Cape Town being selected to represent South Africa at the African Youth Chess tournament to be held in Namibia soon.
Constable Motseki from the Galeshewe police station, who was part of the delegation that went to Letshego Primary School, used the platform to encourage the young pupils to participate and become involved in a sport, pointing out that it would help them to avoid using drugs.
The initiative was welcomed and appreciated by both schools and ended with chess games being played between the pupils and the men and women in blue.
