OLYMPIAD'S VIRGIN

It is not easy to play in Olympiad.
First to qualify to be in a team.
Second to qualify financially to be in a team.
Third to physically be at the venue
Fourth to qualify to play in one of those round ( well, we do have players that never make a move in Olympiad, remember?)
Fifth to finally going back home safely (we have in 1982 Olympiad player that went missing until today)

No I have never played one but just imagine when we played in a tournament where being a GM is normal, to discover that Kramnik, Shirov, Carlsen is also human and we can call them as our fellow competitors that we can snap a pic with (no more some fearless god from our chess book), Kasparov, Karpov can be seen on and off the tournament hall...the experience, occassion can simply be overwhelm especially so if this is our first Olympiad. We are the so called Olympiad's virgin.

We take a deep breath, tried to look around to see whether is there any player that is 'lauk' in which we can easily beat (blame this with our old habit taken from local chess tournament due to boredom in waiting for 1st round to begin, the compulsory one and half hour late than schedule).

None.

Then it dawn on us that WE are actually the delicious 'lauk' for this feast!

Statistic
Below are statistic on this year Malaysian's Olympiad team (men) perform when they are as per Madonna's song "Like a virgin" ;-)

Mas Hafizul
He scored a fantastic 7.5 out of 12 in 1994 Olympiad. An exception.

Mok Tze Meng
He scored 2.5 out of 5 in 1990. Next Olympiad performed even worst, 2 out of 7 but now, look where he is !

Peter Long
3 out of 9 in 1984 Oympiad. Next Olympiad, 3.5 out of 11.

Greg Lau
2.5 out of 7 in 2002 Olympiad.

So Mr Tan Khai Boon. Please do not feel so bad. Your team mate, they are also not that great in their first outing!

Well, it is not easy to play in Olympiad!