JANUARY 30, 2002

The "sporting" Ojjehs

Mansour Ojjeh caught the Formula 1 bug back in the early 1980s when his father's Techniques Avant Garde SA was a supporter of the Williams team.

MANSOUR OJJEH caught the Formula 1 bug back in the early 1980s when his father's Techniques Avant Garde SA was a supporter of the Williams team. Ojjeh later joined forces with McLaren, took a shareholding in the team, and funded the TAG Porsche engine program, which brought McLaren enormous success.

Ojjeh's stepmother Nahed Tlass has now decided her own mark in a sport and has bought the most famous chess club in Paris and intends to turn this into a successful organization. To this end she has engaged the services of a number of foreign players, notably the world's number two Russian Vladimir Kramnik. Her long-term aim, however, is to get chess recognized as an Olympic sport...