After Round 8 of the 2023 Asian Schools Championship in U7 category, Aidan is on 3.5/8 – having picked up a nice win off yet another Uzbek player. Kaisar is on 3/8 with a tough loss against Mustafo Marimboev, also from Uzbekistan.

Whilst Garg Hriday of India looks set to pick up another win after the Allegro championship (7/8), competition for silver & bronze is heating up between a number of Uzbek & Kazakh players all within a point of each other in places 2-6.

The boys have tried Uzbek pilaf today and visited the Tashkent TV tower, where they were surprised to find a replica of the Sydney Tower Eye which they toured a few years ago (and which apparently is shorter than the Uzbek one). There was a small cassette deck museum at the door of the tower, which didn’t seem to impress the boys who mistook it for some sort sort of a ‘speaker store’.

Lastly, the boys also witnessed the Sri Lankan delegation’s photosession in the morning and were quite impressed with their unity and sheer size (~40 players and ~25 accompanying parents/coaches). This was the first time that Kaisar and Aidan wondered out loud where the rest of their Australian friends/competitors were – here’s hoping they’ll have more of them next year!

If Sri Lanka can field ~40 and Mongolia ~20, surely Australia can find a few more?

Report by Batyrbekov family.

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