From tomorrow until June 25, Vrnjačka Banja will host the Chess Olympiad for blind and visually impaired chess players, which will also include the Montenegrin national team, the Paralympic Committee announced.
The Montenegrin team will be led by Predrag Nikač, the gold medalist at the 2017 Chess Olympiad for the Blind and Visually Impaired in Ohrid, for the result achieved on the first board.
He is also the gold medalist on the first chess board of the 2023 Paralympics in Belgrade.
The Montenegrin selection also includes Vjekoslav Vulević, Radovan Damjanović and Milan Ivanović, while Radenko Lacmanović will be the coach.
All Montenegrin national team members are members of the Zora Chess Club, which is known as a club dominated by visually impaired people.
Nikač said that the upcoming Olympics is one of the strongest, perhaps the highest quality, in the history of Paralympic chess.
He emphasized that all the biggest chess powers will compete for medals in Vrnjacka Banja, except for Russia, which will not be participating for well-known reasons.
"The first favorites are Poland and Ukraine, as well as the home team of Serbia. Among the candidates for a high ranking are India, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Our team is very competitive, but as in every competition and in every sport, we need luck to achieve a result," said Nikač.
Speaking about his ambitions, the medalist from the world's biggest competitions believes he will be competitive on the top board.
"That I will be able to compete for one of the medals. I must admit that I did not prepare anything special for the tournament in Vrnjacka Banja," said Nikač.
The Montenegrin national team currently ranks tenth in the starting rating out of 28 registered teams.
Nine rounds will be played according to the Swiss system.
Coach Lacmanović said that the Montenegrin team is traveling to Vrnjacka Banja with optimism and a strong desire to best represent the chess of people with partial or complete vision loss in Montenegro.
"We are going with the best squad we currently have. The most is expected from Nikač, although his task is the most difficult because he plays on the first board. I hope his job will not be harder than in Ohrid, when he delighted us with a gold medal. I am sure that we will delight Montenegro and the entire chess public from Vrnjačka Banja," said Lacmanović.
He expects that after Vrnjacka Banja, more concrete steps will be taken to valorize the Nikač result.
"That Montenegro should repay Nikač in the best possible way, because he has long since repaid Montenegro," Lacmanović concluded.
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