Victorian Olympians Part 1

The current chess Olympiad sees only one current Victorian representative, Sally Yu, board 3 for the women's team. Sally started off with a good win in the first round playing black Rivera Borg of Malta. The game was an Exchange Queen's Gambit where Sally was able to nullify any threats that her opponent came up with, while creating her own threats which won her an exchange. Sally is the fist Victorian representative in the women's team since Anastasia Sorokina played in 2004 and that was the only Victorian appearnace this century in the women's squad!

In the men's team, there has been more Victorian representation:

2010 D. Johansen

2008 D. Johansen

2006 N. Speck

2004 D. Johansen

2002 D. Johansen, N. Speck, M. Gluzman

2000 D. Johansen, G. West, L. Sandler

To be fair, GM Darryl Johansen could have played this time, but he ruled himself out of contention. I'll have a look further back into the twentieth century later on during this Olympiad!

Anyway, here's Sally's first game from the 2012 Istanbul Olympiad.

Victorian Women's Championship

The revamp of the Victorian Women's Championship has been a success story for Chess Victoria and Box Hill Chess Club. The tournament has an interesting format with games taking place over 2 consecutive weekends, 29/30 September and 6/7 October. Sponsorship for the tournament has been found and at the time of writing this there are already 14 entrants.

While Victoria's top female player will be absent (Sally Yu will be at University in America when the tournament is being held) there will be plenty to play for. The top seed is currently Sri Lankan born Vineetha Wijesuriya who has played a number of times for Sri Lanka at Olympiads and currently lives in Ballarat. A large part of the field is made up of young players, pointing to the potential for a great future for women's chess in the state.

I am unable to find any history of this event, so if anyone has any information such as who the last champion was, how long the championship has been established, and any details of previous winners, that would be greatly appreciated.