Chess will soon be coming to the Junior Olympic Games. The Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) has announced that it will add chess as its latest competition, joining established programs covering dozens of sports. Matt Thomas, the first American chessboxing world champion, will lead the AAU’s new chess program. Jo Mirza, the President of the AAU, explained that Thomas’s “expertise and love for the sport will lay the foundation to grow and expand AAU Chess around the country and globally.”
The AAU was founded in 1888 to establish standards and uniformity in sports. It is now the largest non-profit, event-driven multi-sports organization in the United States. The AAU includes nearly 1,000,000 members and 150,000 volunteers across 45 sports. The AAU runs the Junior Olympic Games each year, the largest multi-sport event for youth in the United States, which can feature up to 19,000 competitors across the full range of sports.
The AAU’s first initiative in chess was sponsoring the first annual Naroditsky Memorial Rapid and Blitz Tournament earlier this month. The president of the Charlotte Chess Center, FM Peter Giannatos, commented, “We’re excited to welcome AAU Chess into the broader chess community, and we are grateful for their contribution to support youth chess in the name of GM Daniel Naroditsky’s memory.”
In addition to earning a world championship title, Thomas has promoted chessboxing and its individual component sports for years. In 2022, he partnered with Chess.com to host the largest chessboxing event in history, where he provided commentary.
Thomas explained, “Chess changes lives. The game shaped the way I think, and I’m honored to enter this role with the AAU to solidify chess as its newest sport offering, as well as providing a new international competition and accolade for young chess players all over the world in the AAU Chess Junior Olympics.”