A bold move but one that was checkmated: Dressed in a niqab and wearing glasses, a young Kenyan played four rounds of a women's chess tournament in Nairobi, before being unmasked.
Something caught the attention of the organizers of the 31st edition of the Kenya Open, an international chess competition that brought together 445 participants in the Kenyan capital from April 6 to 10, when they observed a mysterious player, silent and enigmatic under a veil and her suspicions were later confirmed.
After matches, he would disappear and only return a few minutes before the next round. Her complexion, with "more masculine than feminine" shoulders, and his shoes, a model "mainly associated with men", also surprised.
After a victory against a Kenyan player and a loss against a Ugandan, a female referee accompanied her to the baths, where she was asked to remove the niqab. "He immediately admitted that he was a man. He was excluded and the results (of his matches) were reversed (...). He said that it was financial problems that led him to act like this," Mukabi explained.
The stupefaction was maximum. The general secretary of the Kenyan chess federation, John Mukabi, assures that he doubts that "a similar case has occurred in the world."
The top ten in the women's tournament receive cash prizes of up to 500,000 Kenyan shillings (about 3,300 euros). The young man, a student at the University of Nairobi, is summoned before the disciplinary commission of the Kenyan federation next week. He is exposed to several years of suspension.
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