And now, the end is near

I for one am glad that today will be the last day. It has been a long, long week, and when you don’t feel well, the familiarity of home is all the more appealing. The final round started just a few moments ago, with Team USA having a number of strong medal chances. Special mention goes to Tommy He alone at the top of the U-10 Open on 7 points, and Evan Xiang also with 7 points tied at the top of the Girls U-12 and essentially assured of Silver, but behind the leader on tie breaks. Yang starts today in third place in U-18 Girls and could still win any of the medals. Ellen is in fourth place in U-14 Girls and will need to beat the leader to probably take Silver, but she comes into the round with a US team-leading five straight wins behind her. Jonathan is third in U-10 Open and will almost certainly medal, but Vignesh starts sixth and will likely fall just short. Justus starts in sixth in the U-12 Open, but by my estimate is likely to win and still finish fourth. Sarah and John have to play each other in U-14 Open, but neither of them, nor Hannah in U-10 Girls, despite fighting performances, will finish in the medal positions.
So that leaves the three Musketeers in the U-16 Open. The Gold has already been wrapped up, with FM Oscar Enrique Zavarce from Venezuela sitting on 7.5 points, a full 1.5 points clear of his nearest rival. His rating is below that of any of the three US entrants, and shows how open a field this has been. The opportunity was there for all of them, but congratulations are due to Oscar for playing a fantastic tournament. Adarsh is on 5.5 and could still get a minor medal, but there are three boys ahead of him on 6.0, so it is not really in his hands. Chris and Stuart are playing for their pride, the team, and to protect rating points, as both are on 4.5.
Forty-eight hours ago, I would never have thought it would end this way. Stuart only has one point out of the last four (how is it he still manages to be on Board 6!), Adarsh 1.5, and Chris 2.0. In Round Eight last night, Chris won but Adarsh was beaten, and then Stuart reappeared for the Armen post-mortem. I’ll cut him some slack because he has definitely been under the weather these past couple of days, but Armen’s conclusion of the review needs no further explanation: a deep sigh, a shake of the head “You had so many chances to win; you had just as many chances to draw. You lost this game??” There was no great emotion at this stage, more like a feeling of resignation in the air that the final chance of even a minor medal had now gone. The ironic thing is that before we came over here, the general advice was that the Latin Americans were not known for their precision in the end game. As it happens, from what I can glean as a non-playing parent, Stuart has outplayed 7 of his 8 opponents (only losing Round 6 out of the opening), but has lost two and drawn one from winning positions in the end game. Some food for thought when we get back home.
We had a fairly quick and quiet dinner, then slumped into our respective beds last night, and it was as though our winter sicknesses merged – coughing and sneezing, blowing and wheezing from both sides. Eventually and thankfully, Stuart went to sleep, until some guy outside with more horsepower under his car hood than between his ears started revving up his engine, so then the coughing started up again. The night before there had been a cavalcade of vehicles blowing their horns late in the night – I thought it was a wedding celebration, but I was told yesterday it was something much more important than that: a soccer victory (this is Brazil, remember!) At least last night’s interruption did not last so long.
Steven, August 7th