Originally Posted by
Vadim Tsypin
Team Canada,
Now that everyone had lived through a full day of trials and tribulations, you have personally experienced various aspects of the chaos still reigning at the WYCC. The organizers are very warm people genuinely trying to make it a good event, but their approaches just don't scale, so they have to learn - with us reaping the consequences.
As someone who came in four days earlier to prepare the ground and was engaged in long and extensive discussions with both Mr. Mehrdad Pahlevanzadeh and Dr. Nasser Al Salem Al Ameri since December 13, please allow me to tell you that there were myriads of serious problems that snared even the delegations much bigger than ours. I have manually sorted the pile of visa originals that were all over makeshift tables in the magnificent main building of the Al-Ain Chess and Culture Club - with photos not matching names and names assigned to wrong countries. There was a huge European team, 16 members of whom had to spend the first night on the lobby floor since the room payments were wrong. There were teams who couldn't have their badges printed yesterday morning since only part of their FIDE fees were paid. There were dozens of other emergencies that had one thing in common: the team coordinators back in their countries dropped the ball and some point and put their delegations in precarious positions.
What was different for Canada? Our coordinator, Frank Lee, shined through and came on top of every issue that was within his power - and even beyond.
Yes, all of us were sometimes tempted to demonstrate weakness and let frustration take over when Frank couldn't give precise answers to seemingly straighforward questions we were asking him back in Canada. Now that we have seen the Oriental way of doing business, we can appreciate even more that Frank was frustrated ten times more than any of us, and still he carried on, and was unfailingly polite and courteous with everyone. I won't bother you with awful details, but let me bear witness that every large team, bar none, was faced with a major crisis on Dec 14-17 that was due to a mistake or omission of their coordinators. Yes, Americans had tremendous clout and Jerry Nash's personal connections, so they recovered from theirs pretty quickly, but Frank Lee's tireless work made it possible for Canada to be in the best shape and avoid such crises altogether.
Frank's job is often thanksless and underappreciated. I'd like to thank him from the bottom of our hearts.
We love you Frank! :-)
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V.T.