India Clinches Historic Double Olympiad Gold

GMs Gukesh Dommaraju, Arjun Erigaisi, and Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu all won as the Indian men wrapped up victory in the 45th FIDE Chess Olympiad with a statement 3.5-0.5 win over Slovenia. They finished a full four points ahead of five teams, with the United States taking silver after a sole win by GM Wesley So took down China, while Uzbekistan had GM Shamsiddin Vokhidov to thank for a win over France and bronze medals. China, Serbia, and Armenia just missed out on the podium. 

Also in the Women's 45th FIDE Chess Olympiad, it was Team India that clinched gold for the first time after narrowly missing out when playing on home soil in 2022. After convincingly beating Azerbaijan 3.5-0.5, they saw Kazakhstan, on equal match points from the outset, tie their match with the U.S. team.

• Open Section: India Goes The Extra Mile; United States, Uzbekistan Complete Podium
• Women's Section: India Wins Ahead Of Kazakhstan, U.S.

Open: India Goes The Extra Mile; United States, Uzbekistan Complete Podium

A much more cynical team than India might have taken quick draws against Slovenia to wrap up Olympiad gold, but India just kept doing what it had been doing and dominated the field. The team crushed Slovenia, while narrow wins for the United States and Uzbekistan brought silver and bronze medals respectively.

See full games and results here.

The final standings show India in a class of its own, four points clear of the pack.

Going into the final round, India was almost guaranteed gold medals, but that "almost" was potentially tricky from a psychological point of view. Gukesh told FM Mike Klein:

"Yesterday in the team meeting, we were already in the celebrations mood. I must admit after yesterday’s game I was super-excited and I didn’t even want to play today. I wanted to play, but I hoped there would be no game. We were all very happy, but we forced ourselves to focus and come here, do the job, and then celebrate."

It's fair to say it was mission accomplished for the team! 

On top board Gukesh steamrollered the dangerous GM Vladimir Fedoseev.

Gukesh explained he wasn't focused on his individual result and recalled the Chennai Olympiad, when India had seemed destined to win gold before he lost a crucial game to GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov: 

"This tournament for me, especially since what happened last time, we were so close as a team to win gold. This time I thought no matter what I’m going to do whatever it takes to win the team gold, so I did not really think about the individual performance much. I just wanted the team to win this time." 

This time I thought no matter what I'm going to do whatever it takes to win the team gold!

—Gukesh Dommaraju

Still, he'd crushed the event individually, with the only 3,000+ performance, picking up 30 rating points and, of course, individual gold on board one.

The only competition, in fact, came from his teammate, Arjun, who won nine games and has now climbed to world number-three, knocking GM Fabiano Caruana down to fourth. 

Not for the first time this Olympiad, Arjun's game, a win over 20-year-old Slovenian GM Jan Subelj, is our Game of the Day. GM Rafael Leitao analyzes it below.

GM Hikaru Nakamura also recapped the games.

A bounce-back win for Praggnanandhaa, who had suffered the only loss of the whole event for the Indian team, was the icing on the cake.

Nominally, China could still have clinched gold if India had suffered a collapse, but when World Champion Ding Liren made a 10-move draw with White against Caruana, it was clear they weren't gunning for the big win they would require in that situation.

How the 2024 #ChessOlympiad ended for Ding Liren and Fabiano Caruana! pic.twitter.com/VubZ1ZVbI0

— chess24 (@chess24com) September 22, 2024

In fact, it was the U.S. team that would clinch a win that earned silver medals.

That result was great, considering only GM Levon Aronian avoided losing rating points in Budapest. Perhaps things could have been different if So had warmed up sooner, since his victories in the last two rounds suggested he was back to his best. Defeating Praggnanandhaa hadn't staved off a loss to India, but an equally dominant win over GM Wei Yi, one of the stars of the event, made all the difference.  

The bronze medals went to the defending champion, Uzbekistan, with Vokhidov winning a nerve-wracking game where GM Maxime Lagarde initially had a large advantage with the white pieces but misplayed his position and collapsed in time trouble. 

Vokhidov got a hero's welcome from his team.

The Uzbekistan team congratulates Shamsiddin Vokhidov on winning the match vs. France! https://t.co/SenbYqvTnC#ChessOlympiad pic.twitter.com/ZMeFNa4x5V

— chess24 (@chess24com) September 22, 2024

He also won individual gold on board four with an unbeaten 8/10.

Except for India, all the top teams lost two matches, and final placings depended heavily on the final round. Serbia's 3.5-0.5 win over Ukraine and Armenia's 2.5-1.5 win over Iran took them into the tie for second, though they missed out on medals on tiebreaks. Germany had suffered heavy blows early on in the Olympiad but topped the teams tied for seventh largely thanks to GM Frederik Svane's individual gold-medal-winning 8/9. It was appropriate, since the team began as the seventh seed.

Women's Section: India Wins Ahead Of Kazakhstan, U.S.

It was a most successful day for Indian chess as the women's team clinched a historic first gold as well, not counting the tie for first with Russia at the 2020 Online Olympiad. It was only their second Olympiad team medal after bronze in 2022, and the first time since 2018 that a country snatched both top Olympic prizes (then it was China). 

Unlike their male compatriots, who didn't lose a single match, the Indian women's team, after winning seven rounds straight, suffered a defeat at the hands of Poland in round eight. There followed a 2-2 tie with the U.S., but then a strong comeback was next with wins against China and Azerbaijan.

With their 2-2 against the U.S., Kazakhstan lost the fight with India but ended up winning silver–not bad at all for a team that was seeded 10th. (It was their first-ever Olympic team medal.) The U.S. grabbed bronze, their first medal since 2008 (also bronze), with silver in 2004 remaining their best effort.

See full results here.

GM Harika Dronavalli set the tone for India on board one with a good win against IM Gunay Mammadzada, where the difference was made in the rook endgame. While the Azerbaijani player played too passively and unnecessarily weakened her kingside, Harika showed excellent endgame technique to convert the full point from what was a drawn position.

IMs Divya Deshmukh and Vantika Agrawal also won their games, while GM Vaishali Rameshbabu drew her game to reach a very convincing 3.5 points out of four. To their relief, the Indian women then saw Kazakhstan failing to beat the U.S. women, meaning that gold was a certainty this time.

In her interview, Harika no doubt was still thinking about the dramatic final day in 2022 in Chennai, when India dropped from first to third, and winning bronze, due to a loss to the U.S.

"I'm extremely happy that finally I made it on the last day," she said. "It's been a rollercoaster ride for me during this tournament, and I'm glad in crucial games the girls picked up and finally we all came as a team and we won the last game, so that means a lot. We played all the strongest teams here, and I think we deserve it."

Mike Klein talked to the Indian Women's team after their match win. Vaishali: "Very happy that we've finally won. I still remember how painful it was in the last year when we lost the last round. Honestly I could not sleep last night thinking about those things!" #ChessOlympiad pic.twitter.com/7E34AUKByp

— chess24 (@chess24com) September 22, 2024

Unsurprisingly, India also won the Gaprindashvili trophy, a prize named after GM Nona Gaprindashvili for the team that has the best overall performance across the open and women's divisions.

Kazakhstan had chances to beat the U.S., but it was always hard to do that with a similar big margin as India's. In a game between two teenagers on board four, WIM Alua Nurman (17) won a pawn as IM Alice Lee (15) missed a tactic but still managed to hold the draw. Nurman was pretty relaxed about it afterward, perhaps also because her score of 6.5/9 is good for an IM norm.

17-year-old Alua Nurman has won team silver with Kazakhstan. On a missed win vs. Alice Lee today she commented: "I'm very calm about it — it happens... a lot!" #ChessOlympiad pic.twitter.com/3z8IGaUvTD

— chess24 (@chess24com) September 22, 2024

The US Women's team talk about their #ChessOlympiad as they waited to know if they'd won medals — they had, as the team took bronze! pic.twitter.com/16WbidaWRD

— chess24 (@chess24com) September 22, 2024

Narrowly missing a medal were the teams from Spain, Armenia, and Georgia, which all finished on 17 board points as well but had worse tiebreaks than the U.S. 

It was sad to see a no-show by Iran vs. Israel, something that has occurred many times before at chess tournaments and was perhaps all the more likely to happen with the current-day geopolitical developments. Although FIDE had expressed intentions to work on a solution in the past (for instance, working toward penalizing Iran in such cases), the situation might just be too delicate to handle. After 15 minutes, the match arbiter stopped the clocks and declared the match a 4-0 forfeit win for Israel.

Looking at individual performances, Deshmukh had a tremendous Olympiad in which she performed above 2600 level. It was good for the gold medal on board three, while the winning team had another individual gold: Vantika on board four. On top board, gold went to China's GM Zhu Jiner.

Gold medal winner for board five, Israel's WFM Dana Kochavi, won all her games (scoring 8/8). As 100-percent scores always lead to twisted rating performances, her 2676 is impressive but perhaps not as much as IM Carissa Yip's 2634, the highest among all women not named Kochavi.

team bronze and individual gold!! 😎 #ChessOlympiad

— Carissa Yip (@carissayipchess) September 22, 2024

Peter Doggers contributed reporting to this article.

The 45th FIDE Chess Olympiad is a massive team event for national federations that takes place every two years. In 2024 it was held in Budapest, Hungary, with 11 rounds that ran September 11-22. In Open and Women's sections, teams of five players competed in a Swiss Open, with each match played over four boards. There were two match points for a win and one for a draw, with board points taken into account only if teams were tied. Players had 90 minutes per game, plus 30 minutes from move 40, with a 30-second increment per move.

Previous Coverage:

• Round 10: India On Brink Of 1st-Ever Olympiad Gold After Defeating United States
• Round 9: Uzbekistan Ends India's Win Streak In Open, Kazakhstan Takes Women's Lead
• Round 8: Gukesh, Arjun, Vidit Lead Indian Men To 16/16; Polish Women Defeat India
• Round 7: Gukesh Grinds Out Endgame Masterpiece, Both Indian Teams On Perfect 14/14
• Round 6: Indian Teams Sole Leaders After Ding Defeat Costs China
• Round 5: Arjun Hits 5/5 As India Powers On; Armenian Women Topple China
• Round 4: Ivanchuk Beats So As Ukraine Topples Olympiad Top-Seed United States
• Round 3: Carlsen Bikes To Win As Giri, Keymer Suffer Shock Defeats
• Round 2: Caruana Back In 2800 Club; Canada Hold Carlsen-less Norway To Draw
• Round 1: Aronian, Mamedyarov, Arjun Live Dangerously As Top Teams Win
• 2024 FIDE Chess Olympiad: 7 Talking Points
• U.S. Top Seeds, India Close 2nd As Chess Olympiad Teams Announced