The rivalry between two chess gamers in Russia took a weird flip when one in every of them was accused of poisoning a recreation board with liquid mercury, making her opponent sick.
The suspect, chess participant Amina Abakarova, 40, was captured on surveillance video taking one thing out of her bag after which smearing a substance on a chess board and the desk at the start of a match occasion in Russia’s Dagestan on August 2, according to the state-run outlet Russia Today.
Abakarova then started enjoying in opposition to her opponent, Umayganat Osmanova, 30, however Osmanova began feeling sick about half-hour into the match.
Osmanova, who had seen tiny silver beads on the desk, felt nauseous and dizzy, and had a metallic style in her mouth.
“Within the first minutes, I felt an absence of air and a style of iron in my mouth,” she informed Russia As we speak. “I needed to spend about 5 hours on this board. I don’t know what would have occurred to me if I hadn’t seen it earlier.”
Her sudden bout of illness prompted chess officers to name for emergency companies, with medical doctors later concluding she was poisoned by poisonous fumes.
After digital camera footage was reviewed, Russian authorities detained and questioned Abakarova, who then apparently confessed that she had taken liquid mercury from a thermometer and tampered with the chess board to scare Osmanova.
Their rivalry took a flip for the more serious when the 2 chess gamers, who had identified one another since they have been youngsters, had a falling out as a result of Abakarova violated recreation play guidelines when she introduced a cellphone to a earlier match.
Abakarova then grew to become upset when she heard Osmanova was gossiping concerning the incident.
Apart from Osmanova, one other participant and a chess official additionally felt sick from publicity to the mercury. Abakarova was later suspended by the Russian Chess Federation and will face jail time for the poisoning.
Within the lengthy historical past of chess, this looks like the primary time that somebody has poisoned a rival, the English Chess Federation’s director of worldwide chess Malcolm Pein told The Telegraph.
“That is the primary recorded case of any person utilizing a poisonous substance, to my data, within the historical past of the sport of chess,” he mentioned.
However that is actually not the primary time that poison has been deployed to take out opponents in Russia. State brokers have been accused of making an attempt to harm and kill perceived enemies of Russian President Vladimir Putin — and that is with out moving into the grisly demise of Grigori Rasputin.
Publicity to mercury, a potent neurotoxin, can result in folks feeling like they will vomit together with tremors, complications, and feeling dizzy. The metallic taste in your mouth suffered by Osmanova is one other signal of mercury poisoning.
When it is in liquid type, folks can get sick from simply inhaling the vapors from the chemical, which is what appears to have occurred to Osmanova.
Whereas Osmanova made a rapid restoration from her ordeal, extended publicity can lead to serious health problems and even death.
Extra on poisoning: Poison Specialist Accused of Poisoning His Wife
