Emmen 1957: The first pink Olympiad
Thirty years after the first Open Chess Olympiad (London 1927), the FIDE organized the first Women's Chess Olympiad, in the city of Emmen, The Netherlands. 21 nations participated (Chile withdrew at the last moment), most of them from Eastern Europe; only two players for each team (human "material" was very scarse back then...) and no reserves at all. Some of the women were married to famous male chess players, such as for example Antonia Ivanova, wife of Milko Bobotsov, column of Bulgaria; Antonia played all her Olympiads under her maiden name, it is said according to her husband's insistence, him being worried about his own reputation...
The World Champion Olga Rubtsova didn't shine at that event, but the Soviet Union won the title anyway, thanks to the team points (in those years the first criterion was that of individual points), over Romania and East Germany. The standings of the final A:
| Pos | Nation | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | IP | TP |
| 1 | URSS | x | 1 | 1.5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 2 | 10.5 | 12 |
| 2 | Romania | 1 | x | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0.5 | 2 | 2 | 10.5 | 10 |
| 3 | East Germany | 0.5 | 1 | x | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1 | 1.5 | 10 | 12 |
| 4 | Hungary | 1 | 1 | 0.5 | x | 0.5 | 1 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 8.5 | 9 |
| 5 | Bulgaria | 1 | 1 | 0.5 | 1.5 | x | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 8 | 8 |
| 6 | Yugoslavia | 1 | 0 | 0.5 | 1 | 1 | x | 1.5 | 2 | 0.5 | 7.5 | 7 |
| 7 | England | 0.5 | 1.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 1 | 0.5 | x | 1 | 1.5 | 7 | 6 |
| 8 | West Germany | 0.5 | 0 | 1 | 0.5 | 2 | 0 | 1 | x | 1 | 6 | 5 |
| 9 | The Netherlands | 0 | 0 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0 | 1.5 | 0.5 | 1 | x | 4 | 3 |
Technically speaking, the event was quite poor, there were too few players with an acceptable level confronted with today's players; but as far as anecdotes were concerned...full respect!
For example, the second board from Belgium, Lilly Bollekens, didn't have a clear idea of how the clock worked; she approached one of the arbiters and asked: "If I must still make 20 moves with 3 minutes left, and also my opponent still must make 20 moves in 3 minutes...who wins?"
With great patience, the arbiter explained to her for about half an hour how a chess clock worked; at the end of the explanation, Lilly simply smiled and exclaimed: "It was exactly that I thought!".
Some players didn't waste time during the games: the Danish Ingrid Larsen smoked a cigar and the American Gisela Gresser caught up with her correspondence in between the moves.
A small pandemonium developed when the second French board Isabel Choko moved and erroneously pushed the clock of her teammate Chantal Claudé de Silans; Chantal's opponent, the Irish Hilda Chater, without realizing that no move at all had been made, immediatly replied with a knight move. It took a huge effort from the chief arbiter Alberic O'Kelly to convince her to take back the knight and resume the position correctly...
But perhaps the most curious and significant episode involved the Irish Beth Cassidy. Playing black against the Dutch Catharina Roodzant, suddenly Beth stood up and started walking through the playing room, convinced that she was absolutely winning. On the wall there were hanging boards with the current positions, and Beth, observing one of them, concluded that black, an exchange down, was absolutely lost. Can you imagine her surprise when, looking at the names of the players, she read "Roodzant-Cassidy"?
As formerly said, few games were interesting and worth of consideration; the following two became famous for different reasons.
Take a look at the diagram shown below, protagonist again our Beth:
The following one must have been a real shock for black:
Long-lost times...
It goes without saying that today's female chess life reveals itself completely different!
Women, with passion and perseverance, have successfully conquered the chess realm, becoming more often than not precious assets for the nations they represent.
