AThe Windsor Star Windsor, Ontario, Canada Friday, June 02, 1972 - Page 26
World Checkers Championship
GEORGE ORT, my Netherlands correspondent who misses little on the overseas airwaves, informs that a Dutchman, name of Tom Sybrant has just won the world checkers championship in Hengelo, Holland, at expense of the Russians who have dominated the game, as they dominated chess, since the forties.
Sybrant seems to presage a parallel with the chess scene in which American Bobby Fisher is presently to tackle world champion Boris Spassky of Russia in a 24-game match in Iceland.
It seems that Sybrant boasted before the checkers tournament that he was the best there was and why did the Russians bother even showing up? While making his point in competition, Sybrant accused the Russians of ganging up on other participants with a view to keeping the title in Russia.
The Russians, reports George, are now in a huff over having lost the title and are saying the Dutchman scared the Russian players into losing. One of the Russian players had to be treated for nervous tension in a Dutch hospital before returning to Moscow.
SYBRANT HAS either been going to school on Fischer's technique or vice versa. Fischer and the Russian chess people have been accusing each other of chicanery for quite some time.
FISCHER CLAIMS that Spassky doesn't stand a chance against him. Two of the Russian grandmasters Fischer polished off en route to the upcoming affair with Spassky were forced to repair to their rooms suffering from mental exhaustion.
I don't know why Canadian hockey players don't throw a Fischer or Sybrant-like curve at the Russians. The way things are going the Canadian public may wind up suffering from mental exhaustion.
