Grandmaster Ahmed Adly, from Egypt, is the new Chair of the Athletes Commission for a period of six months. He takes the baton from the Women's World Champion Ju Wenjun.
When the Commission was created in the beginning of 2021, FIDE received nine candidacies for the ten elected positions. Therefore, voting was not required, and these nine candidates made it directly into the Commission.
In order to reach the number of members established on the regulations another four members were appointed by the FIDE Council: IM Ekaterina Atalik (proposed by Ms Tulay), IM Jomo Pitterson (proposed by Mr. Wilkinson) and IM Alina Kashlinskaya (proposed by Mr. Dvorkovich). Dinara Saduakassova (Kazakhstan) was the first athlete to chair this Commission for a period of half a year, followed by Ju Wenjun and now Ahmed Adly, in a six-month rotation. After the FIDE Congress 2022, a new electoral process will be held, electing 15 new members for a four-year term.
Born in February 1987, Adly is one of the strongest African players in history, and a world-class player who won the World Junior Chess Championship in Armenia in 2007, as well as a bronze medal in the World Championship Under 18 in Greece, 2004. In 2005, 2011 and 2019, he won the African Chess Championship, and in February 2021, he won the Africa Online Open with a score of 7.5/9.
Ahmed is also the CEO of his own chess school, a FIDE official Academy in Cairo that bears his own name. With a 600 sqm venue and a staff of 26 people working there, Adly Chess Academy trains more than 250 pupils, who are already achieving their first successes in national and continental competitions.
The purpose of the Athletes Commission (ATH) is to enable the players' voices and experiences to be heard and used for the improvement of chess as a sport. Involving athletes in the decision-making process is a core component of good governance within sports organizations, allowing them to provide early feedback on potential decisions that will affect them. This peer-to-peer cooperation helps to safeguard the credibility of the sport.
Likewise, this body will actively promote and support the establishment of Athletes' Commissions in Area Associations and Member Federations. The figure of an Athletes Commission is common among members and stakeholders of the Olympic movement, like other International Federations (IFs), National Olympic Committees (NOCs), the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), or the Organizing Committees of the Olympic Games (COCGs).
