Blast from the past
World Youth Olympiad 2002
The Malaysian Chess Federation (MCF) organised the World Youth Olympiad (U16) which took place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 20th-28th August 2002. 2nd seeds China A took clear first on the back of an 85% score on board 1 by Wang Yue and an 80% score on board 2 by Zhao Jun. Top seeds the Ukraine finished second but could be said to have underperformed with IM Alexander Areshchenko scoring only 60% on board 1 and soon to be confirmed GM Sergey Karjakin losing a lot of points on board 2 with a 75% (performance rating of about 2373) score. Natalia Zdebskaja scored 81.3% for them on board 3. 7th seeds Indonesisa took 3rd place and 4th seeds India finished 4th. Overperformances were achieved by 11th seeds Uzbekistan (5th) and 17th seeds Singapore (9th). 5th Seeds England (13th) and 3rd seeds Romania (6th) performed less well.
I was there and I can’t believe I wasted the chance to take pictures of juniors that are going to be famous today such as Wang Yue, Wang Hao and Sergey Karjakin. Actually I did but all those are lost in the now expired domain: www.thechessnetwork.net 
Lesson learnt. Always make backups.
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