Uzbekistan, the host nation, won the open gold medals at the 2026 Chess Olympiad, the biennial international team tournament, held in Samarkand last week. India, the defending champions, finished second, Germany took a surprise third, and the top-seeded United States placed fourth.
Hosts dominate from the start
The hosts led almost from start to finish, with world No 5 Nodirbek Abdusattorov and world title challenger Javokhir Sindarov as their top-board powerhouses. The team recovered quickly from a single defeat by Germany and impressed with a 3.5-0.5 crushing of Armenia in the penultimate round. The Uzbekistan government rewarded each of the five players with $200,000 (£178,000), a house and a Volkswagen, plus $50,000 for coach Rustam Kasimdzhanov.
India performed in line with their seeding. Putting world champion Gukesh Dommaraju on board four boosted his results but also underlined that Sindarov is the favourite for the coming world championship match. Gukesh was exposed in the final rounds when outplayed against both Germany, although he won that game fortuitously, and Hungary.
Final standings and England's performance
The final leading scores were: Uzbekistan 20/22 match points; India and Germany 18; USA, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Hungary 17; China, France, Spain, Ukraine and England 16 (206 teams competed). England's creditable 12th place, one below their seeding, would have been higher if a third player had performed at the level of nine-time British champion Michael Adams, 54, and Spectator chess columnist Luke McShane, 42, who were both in contention for individual medals until the final round. England's women finished 15th against a seeding of 20th, and the combined performance was the best since at least 2018, and probably since 1990.
Russia/USSR, which monopolised Olympiad golds in the second half of the 20th century, have been banned from the last three competitions due to the invasion of Ukraine. If allowed to take part, a team of Ian Nepomniachtchi, Andrey Esipenko, Daniil Dubov, Vladislav Artemiev and Alexander Grischuk would have been contenders.
Sivanandan breaks world age record
Bodhana Sivanandan broke the world age record for the youngest ever woman grandmaster (WGM). Her 8/11 total, playing all games with no rest days, included six wins, draws against Ukraine's reigning European champion Anastasiia Hnatyshyn and Georgia's former World Blitz champion Nana Dzagnidze, both current world top 20 players, and a solitary loss to Deysi Cori of Peru due to a time-pressure blunder in a drawn ending.
The 11-year-old Harrow schoolgirl's record broke Hou's 2006 mark by several months. She also recorded her second norm (of three needed) for the international master (IM) title at open level. For IM, she also needs a 2400 rating against her current 2382, which includes the Olympiad. Her last-round Olympiad game was a model of her trademark Magnus Carlsen grind.
If she secures her final norm and becomes an IM before her 12th birthday, she will break all-time female No 1 Judit Polgar's world age record and become one of the 10 youngest ever IMs. She is already No 2 among all players born in 2015, behind only Russia's IM Roman Shogdzhiev.
Other highlights and new FIDE president
China won the women's Olympiad ahead of Kazakhstan, India and the US, doing so with its B team. World champion Ju Wenjun, world No 1 Hou Yifan, former title challenger Tan Zhongyi and world No 3 Lei Tingjie all stayed at home, but substitutes led by world No 4 Zhu Jiner and 16-year-old Lu Miaoyi proved highly effective. The US is potentially a powerhouse in women's chess, with Carissa Yip, 23, and Alice Lee, 16, targeting the open GM title and its $100,000 bonus offered by Dr Jeanne Cairns Sinquefield, while new candidates Rachael Li, Rose Atwell and Zoey Tang are all teenagers with 2300+ ratings.
Turkey's Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, 15, won the individual silver medal unbeaten and advanced to No 17 in the live ratings, a similar level to Bobby Fischer at that age and ahead of current world No 1 Carlsen when he was 15. He defeated Argentina's Faustino Oro.
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport's new £250,000 a year Supporting Elite Chess Fund document contains no specific provision for rewarding world-record breakers. Sivanandan's IM title and new record could follow as soon as the London Classic, which begins in November. She has just started at secondary school, which could slow her progress. The advance from IM to GM is difficult, and many talents eventually plateau.
Timur Turlov, 38, a Russian-born entrepreneur from Kazakhstan whose company Freedom Holding has a multibillion dollar valuation on the Nasdaq index, was elected as the new president of the world chess body Fide last Saturday. Previous president Arkady Dvorkovich had planned to run for a third term but was forced to withdraw due to EU sanctions. Turlov received 96 votes against 76 for German businessman Wadim Rosenstein and 20 for the ticket of Jan Henric Buettner and the ECF's international director Malcolm Pein. In the run-off ballot, Turlov defeated Rosenstein 110-85. Rosenstein has appealed to the court of arbitration for sport over Turlov's eligibility.
