The favorites don’t always win, but in this case there was little doubt that India would win the Olympics. They led wire to wire, and with Gukesh Dommaraju and Arjun Erigaisi playing insanely good chess the rest of the field had practically no chance at all. India nearly achieved a perfect team score, getting 21/22 (10.5/11 on traditional scoring) and finished four points ahead of their closest competitors. They finished the event in style, crushing Slovenia 3.5-0.5 in the last round.
As noted, India’s success is thanks largely to the absurd performances of Gukesh and Erigaisi. Erigaisi, the highest-rated Indian player coming into the event held down board 3, scoring 10/11 and achieving a 2968 tournament performance rating (TPR). He gained 19.2 points and is now the world’s #3 player, rated 2797.2. Ho hum.
That’s crazy, but Gukesh, who will play Ding Liren for the World Championship in a couple of months (and probably annihilate him if both players continue to play as they have throughout this year), was even better. He “only” scored 9/10, but that was on board 1, not board 3. He gained 30.1 points, and achieved a 3056 TPR. He’s now 2794.1, in fifth place on the live rating list, just a tick behind Fabiano Caruana. Needless to say, he and Erigaisi won their board prizes.
In second, well, there was a tie - a five-way tie for second. Coming into the round China was in clear second and Slovenia was in third, so for the sake of the nations chasing them they’d both have to lose. Slovenia lost to India, as noted above, and the U.S. would have to defeat China. They did. As usual, but somewhat spectacularly so in this round, Ding Liren abdicated his role as team leader, throwing away the white pieces against Caruana to make a draw by repetition in just 10 moves. There were draws on boards 3 and 4 as well, which left the U.S.’s fate up to Wesley So. He came through, outplaying Wei Yi in a nice endgame. That left the U.S. and China tied for second, but not only them.
The defending champs, Uzbekistan, needed a win over France to join the tie, and with a win on board 4 by Shamsiddin Vokhidov against Maxime Lagarde, they got it. Vokhidov also won the gold medal for the best performance on board 4 (2779 TPR), while their top board, world #6 Nodirbek Abdusattorov, also had a great event. He gained 16.8 points and is now 2782.8 on the live list, and he had the third best performance in the tournament with a massive 2884 TPR, good for the silver for board 1. They were the only team that didn’t lose to India, so while they may be slightly disappointed not to repeat their 2022 triumph they should still feel good about their play overall.
So that makes a three-way tie for second. The fourth member of the pentumvirate(?) was Serbia, which crushed the hitherto impressive Ukrainian team 3.5-0.5. Their boards 1-3 all played very well, and the reserve player, Velimir Ivic, took the bronze for board 5.
Finally, Armenia, a team renowned for over-performing in the Olympics even when Levon Aronian was a part of their team rather than the U.S. squad (er, apologies?), also finished in the tie for second thanks to their 2.5-1.5 victory over Iran. That made it five, and had there been a winner in the Spain-Hungary match it would have been a six-way tie. It finished in a draw, so it was a pentarchy (at least disregarding India).
Five teams fighting for two medals…and the winners were: the U.S. and Uzbekistan. As they, along with the Chinese team (which finished in the heartbreaking fourth spot) were generally on the absolute top boards throughout, they could be expected to play the toughest opponents which generally translates into better tiebreak scores. So, it’s not surprising, but there’s always a bit of luck involved. Anyway, congratulations to the winners!
In the Women’s section, India won there, too, scoring 19/22. Kazakhstan finished a point behind, and then the U.S. women were in third, finishing ahead of three other teams (Spain, Armenia, and Georgia) on tiebreak. The U.S. drew their match with Kazakhstan in the last round; had they won, they would have come in second and, I think, Spain would have had the best tiebreaks among the teams with 17 points. So kudos to the Kazakhs for surviving that critical last round match.
Games later!