A specialized classroom for chess was opened at the University of Physical Culture and Sport Sciences Manuel Fajardo (Universidad de Ciencias de la Cultura Física y el Deporte Manuel Fajardo, UCCFD in spanish)
The First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, said at the opening of the specialized classroom for chess of the study center Isla that it was to strengthen Cuba as a city of world chess. To encourage the organization of more first level international events, as the conditions allow to.
Díaz-Canel joined a simultaneous match that the Grand Master Lisandra Ordaz Valdés was having with some students online from Pinar del Rio. He finally asked her to “agree table” which was accepted by her, who is without doubt, the best chess player in the largest of the Antilles.
At the opening celebration The Grand Master Vivian Ramón Pita, director of the Chess Study center Isla, recalled about the long and successful Cuban history in the science game, from José Raúl Capablanca and the impulse and spread of the sport by the Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz and specially by Ernesto Che Guevara, whose name is given to the classroom already opened.
Vivian Ramón, the first Grand Cuban Master honored the Guerrillero Heroico (Ernesto Guevara is also known by this name), for his love and enthusiasm for chess. He was decorated in 1999 by the International Federation of Chess with its highest decoration, the order Caballero de la FIDE, due to his dedication to chess.
The classroom will support the development of chess in the standard way as well as online, and will connect to the project Soñando a Capablanca. Vivian Ramón explained that among its goals, the classroom will add the cognitive development and the chess abilities to the development of chess for children.
The first Secretary of the Party underlined that Cuba is one of the nations which can be proud of the number of Grand Masters it has (more than 50 and hundreds with FIDE titles) .
He recognized the influence of the sport in our society, where chess is played by thousands and thousands of Cuban men and women in any part of the country, as a result of the effort the Revolution has done for the development of the sport.
Jorge Luis Broche Lorenzo, member of the Secretarial of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party and the person in charge of the Department for the Social Sector Attention and Jorge Luis Perdomo Di-Lella, vice prime minister took part in the opening of the specialized classroom for chess, Ernesto Che Guevara at the study center Isla, at the University of Physical Culture and Sport Sciences Manuel Fajardo.
Several personalities attended the event, which host was The Ph.D Silvano Merced Lem, we can mention: Osvaldo Vento Montiller, president of the National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation; José Ramón Saborido Loidi, the holder of Higher Education Minister; Luis Antonio Torres Iríbar, first secretary of the Communist Party in Havana, and the Governor of the capital, Reinaldo García Zapata.
Source: Granma
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