Uganda Battles Visa Issues at Olympiad

In ChessBase's latest Olympiad update, a brief mention was given to the blight of the Ugandan team, which was forfeited today in their match against Latvia when only one of their players arrived for the match. It seems that Uganda has had trouble obtaining visas for some of their players; in the first two rounds, they sent only two players to each match, forfeiting the two other boards. Today, one of the players who had been able to enter Germany visited the Ugandan embassy to attempt to secure passage for his teammates.

While Uganda is not a contender for the top prizes, they did manage to win 3 of the 4 individual games they had played so far (drawing the 4th), and managed a draw against San Marino in round two by winning the two boards on which they had players. Regardless of their team's chances, I hope the tournament organizers do everything in their power to allow the team to participate as soon as possible; it would be a shame to mar the Olympiad by excluding a team for bureaucratic reasons.