India make history, win Olympiad gold
Share the title with Russia after a server glitch mars final. India’s appeal was upheld by chess governing body FIDE
MUMBAI: India made chess history on Sunday by winning their first gold in the Olympiad, after they were declared joint champions with formidable Russia in an anti-climactic end to the event played online due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
A server crash led to India’s Nihal Sarin and Divya Deshmukh losing connection, and Koneru Humpy also faced connectivity issues, losing time on her clock leading to her defeat. Russia were 4.5-1.5, but India lodged an appeal. The appeals committee investigated the issue before FIDE (international chess federation) president Arkady Dvorkovich decided to award gold medals to both teams.
Though the final ended in anti-climax, the Indian players were ecstatic as it was their first title in the Olympiad. It was especially memorable for Viswanathan Anand. “I am thrilled with this result. Today was quite eventful. In the whole Olympiad, the Indian team showed a lot of spirit, especially I can say that in this medal, the biggest contribution came from the youngsters, which shows the great future we have in chess. I am just very, very happy to get this gold which has eluded us all this time,” he said.
India had raised hopes, defeating Poland in a thriller in the semi-final.
India and Russia played out draws on all six boards in the first round. In the second, Anand, Vidit Gujarathi and Dronavalli Harika drew their games against Ian Nepomniachtchi, Daniil Dubov and Alexandra
Kosteniuk, respectively. Divya was in a winning position against Polina Shuvalova while Humpy’s game against Aleksandra Goryachkina and Sarin’s against Andrey Esipenko were evenly poised.
India’s appeal followed the decision by FIDE. “The appeals committee has examined all the evidence provided by the platform chess.com as well as information gathered from other sources about this internet outage.
After being informed of their considerations and in the absence of a unanimous decision, and taking into account these unprecedented circumstances, as FIDE President I made the decision to award gold medals to both teams,” Dvorkovich said in a release.
India had performed brilliantly to reach the final, having beaten favourites China in the preliminary stage played in five divisions and involving 163 countries. Each six-member team must include at least one U-20 male and female player each, and at least two women players. The team triumph caps the steady rise of India in the game. For a country where chess is said to have originated, it produced its first Grandmaster only in 1987—Anand. It has made a big leap and now has 65 GMs. Besides Anand, five world junior champions (three men, two women) and many world beaters in age-group chess have emerged.
India, ranked fourth in the world on rating, had its best Olympiad performance in 2014, when it won bronze in Norway.
Though purists may have some reservation about this victory as it came in an online competition via rapid chess with mixed men, women and youth players as against the classical games in a regular Olympiad, which was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it is still a big achievement.