ACourier-Post Camden, New Jersey Wednesday, October 19, 1960
U.S. Team Last-Minute Olympic Competitors
Last-minute financial arrangements permitted the United States to send a team to represent it at the 1960 Chess Olympics after all.
Heading the team is our national champion, 17-year-old Bobby Fischer, plus William Lombardy, Nicholas Rossolimo and Arthur Bisguier. Raymond Weinstein and Robert Byrne are alternates, while Isaac Kashdan is serving as non-playing captain.
The Olympics are being help at Leipzig, in East Germany, and lack of enthusiasm on the part of our Government about sending a team behind the Iron Curtain is partly responsible for our near-failure to have an entry. The list of countries participating totals about 40. Play began Monday.
This may be the last major competition for many years for Lombardy, who now is at the peak of his form and has just been named an international grand master. Lombardy expects to become a member of the Society of Jesus and will soon begin his 13-year study for the priesthood.
One notable absentee from the Olympics will probably be the world champion, Mikhail Tal of the Soviet Union. Tal was involved in an automobile accident in East Germany, en route to Leipzig. While doctors permitted him to travel on to Leipzig, they advised him against competing because he had suffered a slight brain concussion.
With Botvinnik, Keres, Korchnoi, Petrosian and Geller all available, Tal's absence from the Soviet team will not be exactly disastrous.
