1st Cross-border Chess Pong Tournament

Sports Diplomacy is the theme we want to make known through the 1st Cross-border Chess Pong Tournament to be held in Gorizia on 18 May. The FVG Regional Committee of the Italian Table Tennis Federation and the ASD-APS SicuraMente-Young, with the collaboration of the Šahovski klub Nova Gorica, the ASD USTT Azzurra Gorizia and the ASD Scacchistica Pordenonese, with the contribution of the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region, are organising this articulated hybrid event in the gymnasium and the suggestive fireplace hall of the Unione Ginnastica Goriziana in via Rismondo 2 in Gorizia. 

Several side events are planned, such as a literary and photographic contest for the region's secondary schools and webinars to introduce young people to the rules and history of the two sports.

In addition to uniting two lands, this innovative event will also unite two sports - table tennis and chess - which, although they seem very different from each other, have many features in common and are perhaps the most historically emblematic disciplines from a diplomatic point of view.

In fact, both sports were in the past protagonists of two very important diplomatic events during the Cold War of the 1970s, and can therefore be considered as ‘sports of détente and peace’. On 6 April 1971, the American table tennis team playing the 31st World Table Tennis Championship in Japan received an invitation from the People's Republic of China team to visit China.

On 10 April 1971, nine American players, four officials and two spouses crossed a bridge between Hong Kong and mainland China and spent a week between demonstration matches, sightseeing and social events. This event opened the door to Richard Nixon's historic February 1972 visit to China and the recognition of the People's Republic of China by the United States of America.

In 1972, the World Chess Championship, played between the American Bobby Fisher and the Russian Boris Spassky, was the first to have a wide media resonance both within and outside the chess community.

It was in fact the first time that a chess match was televised and, in the midst of the Cold War, it was followed internationally as the clash between the Western and Soviet blocs. Unlike others, these two sports also have more technical aspects in common. In both, unlike team competitions, the individual component is very strong.

As Primo Levi pointed out in his short story ‘The irritable chess players’ in the collection ‘L'altrui mestiere’, chess players have total responsibility for their acts and this rarely happens in other human activities, whether serious or playful.

And like chess players, tennis players are also responsible, on the court or in front of a table, for their actions. Moreover, both chess and table tennis are played within the confines of a physical space that one can perceive completely within one's field of vision. Yet, paradoxically, to play both successfully, one must also have the image of the chessboard or table in one's mind in order to actually have an idea of where the squares or corners are. In both games, one must have what is called a ‘table vision’.

Both activities are characterised by a fundamental brain activity: both chess and table tennis require maximum concentration during competition and this concentration is always the basis for victory or defeat. A meeting, therefore, between the history and culture of two cities separated by a state border after World War II, which are now as united as ever. Also by Sport.

Total prize money: 2300 euro Complete announcement and registration at this link: https://vesus.org/event/2Hc-2ZUk