The Chess Olympiad is a biennial
chess tournament
A chess tournament is a series of chess games played competitively to determine a winning individual or team. Since the first international chess tournament in London, 1851, chess tournaments have become the standard form of chess competition amo ...
in which teams representing nations of the world compete.
FIDE
The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( Fédération Internationale des Échecs), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national c ...
organises the tournament and selects the host nation. Amidst the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
, FIDE held an Online Chess Olympiad in
2020
2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, COVID- ...
and
2021
File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October–November 2021 ...
, with a rapid time control that affected players' online ratings.
The use of the name "Chess Olympiad" for FIDE's team championship is of historical origin and implies no connection with the
Olympic Games
The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...
.
Birth of the Olympiad
The first Olympiad was unofficial. For the
1924 Olympics an attempt was made to include chess in the Olympic Games but this failed because of problems with distinguishing between amateur and professional players.
[
] While the
1924 Summer Olympics
The 1924 Summer Olympics (french: Jeux olympiques d'été de 1924), officially the Games of the VIII Olympiad (french: Jeux de la VIIIe olympiade) and also known as Paris 1924, were an international multi-sport event held in Paris, France. The op ...
was taking place in Paris, the
1st unofficial Chess Olympiad also took place in Paris. FIDE was formed on Sunday, July 20, 1924, the closing day of the 1st unofficial Chess Olympiad.
FIDE
The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( Fédération Internationale des Échecs), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national c ...
organised the first Official Olympiad in 1927 which took place in London.
The Olympiads were occasionally held annually and at irregular intervals until World War II; since 1950 they have been held regularly every two years.
Drug testing
As a sporting federation recognized by the IOC, and particularly as a signatory to the
World Anti-Doping Agency
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA; french: Agence mondiale antidopage, AMA) is a foundation initiated by the International Olympic Committee based in Canada to promote, coordinate, and monitor the fight against drugs in sports. The agency's key ...
(WADA) conventions, FIDE adheres to their rules, including a requirement for doping tests, which they are obligated to take at the events such as the Olympiad. The tests were first introduced in 2002 under significant controversy, with the widespread belief that it was impossible to dope in chess. Research carried out by the Dutch chess federation failed to find a single
performance-enhancing substance
Performance-enhancing substances, also known as performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), are substances that are used to improve any form of activity performance in humans. A well-known example of cheating in sports involves doping in sport, where bann ...
for chess.
According to Dr Helmut Pfleger, who has been conducting experiments in the field for around twenty years, "Both mentally stimulating and mentally calming medication have too many negative side effects".
Players such as
Artur Yusupov,
Jan Timman
Jan Timman (born 14 December 1951) is a Dutch chess grandmaster who was one of the world's leading chess players from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. At the peak of his career, he was considered to be the best non-Soviet player and was known a ...
and
Robert Hübner
Robert Hübner (born November 6, 1948) is a German chess grandmaster, chess writer, and papyrologist. He was one of the world's leading players in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Chess career
At eighteen, he was joint winner of the West German Chess ...
either refused to play for their national team or to participate in events such as the Chess Olympiad where drug tests were administered. All 802 tests administered at the 2002 Olympiad came back negative. However, in the
36th Chess Olympiad in 2004, two players refused to provide urine samples and had their scores cancelled. Four years later,
Vassily Ivanchuk
Vasyl Mykhaylovych Ivanchuk ( uk, Василь Михайлович Іванчук; born March 18, 1969), also transliterated as Vassily Ivanchuk, is a Ukrainian chess player. He was awarded the title of Grandmaster by FIDE in 1988. A leading ...
was not penalized for skipping a drug test at the
38th Chess Olympiad in 2008, with a procedural error being indicated instead.
In 2010, a FIDE official commented that due to the work of the FIDE Medical Commission, the tests were now considered routine. In November 2015, FIDE president
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov
Kirsan Nikolayevich Ilyumzhinov (russian: link=no, Кирса́н Никола́евич Илюмжи́нов, ; Kalmyk: Үлмҗин Кирсән, ''Ülmcin Kirsən'', ; born 5 April 1962) is a Russian business oligarch, administrator and po ...
announced they are working with WADA to define and identify doping in chess.
Competition
Each
FIDE recognized chess association can enter a team into the Olympiad.
Each team is made of up to five players, four regular players and one reserve (prior to the tournament in Dresden 2008 there were two reserves
FIDE submits regulation changes for Chess Olympiad
Fide.com).
Initially each team played all other teams but as the event grew over the years this became impossible. At first team seeding took place before the competition, with teams playing in preliminary groups and then finals. Later certain drawbacks were recognized with seeding and in 1976 a Swiss tournament system was adopted. Starting from 2008, the first criterion for determining ranking has been match points instead of board points. Teams score 2 points for a match win, 1 point for a drawn match and 0 points for a match loss.
The trophy for the winning team in the open section is the Hamilton-Russell Cup, which was offered by the English magnate Frederick Hamilton-Russell as a prize for the 1st Olympiad (London 1927). The cup is kept by the winning team until the next event, when it is consigned to the next winner.
There is a separate women's competition. Since 1976 it has been held at the same time and venue as the open event, with the two competitions comprising the Chess Olympiad. The trophy for the winning women's team is known as the Vera Menchik
Vera Francevna Mencikova (russian: Вера Францевна Менчик, ''Vera Frantsevna Menchik''; cz, Věra Menčíková; 16 February 1906 – 26 June 1944), was a Russian-born Czechoslovak chess player who primarily resided in En ...
Cup in honor of the first Women's World Chess Champion
The Women's World Chess Championship (WWCC) is played to determine the world champion in women's chess. Like the World Chess Championship, it is administered by FIDE.
Unlike with most sports recognized by the International Olympic Committee, wh ...
.
Results
* ''In 1976, the , other Communist countries
A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state that is administered and governed by a communist party guided by Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, the Cominte ...
and Arabic countries
The Arab world ( ar, اَلْعَالَمُ الْعَرَبِيُّ '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, refers to a vast group of countries, mainly located in Western As ...
did not compete for political reasons.''
† ''FIDE organized the online olympiads in 2020
2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, COVID- ...
and 2021
File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October–November 2021 ...
following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
.''
‡ ''Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
and India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
were subsequently declared joint winners after several Indian team members experienced connectivity issues due to a global outage of Cloudflare
Cloudflare, Inc. is an American content delivery network and DDoS mitigation company, founded in 2009. It primarily acts as a reverse proxy between a website's visitor and the Cloudflare customer's hosting provider. Its headquarters are in San ...
servers in 2020 Online Chess Olympiad.''
§ ''The 2022 event was originally planned to be held in Minsk
Minsk ( be, Мінск ; russian: Минск) is the capital and the largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach and the now subterranean Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the admi ...
, Belarus
Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by R ...
, but it was rescheduled to Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
, which originally was host of the 2020 Olympiad, which was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
. However, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine
On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. An ...
, FIDE made a statement in February 2022 that the tournament will not take place in Russia and will be shifted to Chennai
Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...
, India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
.''
Total team ranking
The table contains the Open teams ranked by the medals won at the Chess Olympiad (not including the online or unofficial events), ranked by the number of first-place medals, ties broken by second-place medals, etc.
Most successful players
Boldface denotes active chess players and highest medal count among all players (including these who not included in these tables) per type.
Multiple team champions
Multiple team medalists
The table shows players who have won at least 7 team medals in total at the Chess Olympiads.
Best individual results in the open section
The best individual results in order of overall percentage are:
;Notes
* Only players participating in at least four Olympiads are included in this table.
* Medals indicated in the order gold - silver - bronze. The statistics of individual medals includes only medals which are awarding to the top three individual players on each board. The medals for overall performance rating
The PR (Performance Rating, P-rating) system was a figure of merit developed by AMD, Cyrix, IBM Microelectronics and SGS-Thomson in the mid-1990s (Cyrix announced it in February 1996) as a method of comparing their x86 processors to those of r ...
(awarded in 1984–2006) are not included into this statistics, but are listed separately below the table.
* Anatoly Karpov
Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov ( rus, links=no, Анато́лий Евге́ньевич Ка́рпов, p=ɐnɐˈtolʲɪj jɪvˈɡʲenʲjɪvʲɪtɕ ˈkarpəf; born May 23, 1951) is a Russian and former Soviet chess grandmaster, former World Ches ...
won another individual silver medal for overall performance rating
The PR (Performance Rating, P-rating) system was a figure of merit developed by AMD, Cyrix, IBM Microelectronics and SGS-Thomson in the mid-1990s (Cyrix announced it in February 1996) as a method of comparing their x86 processors to those of r ...
. In total he won 3 gold and 1 silver individual medals.
* Garry Kasparov
Garry Kimovich Kasparov (born 13 April 1963) is a Russian chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist and commentator. His peak rating of 2851, achieved in 1999, was the highest recorded until being surpassed by ...
played his first four Olympiads for the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, the rest for Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
. He won another four individual gold medals and one individual silver medal for overall performance rating
The PR (Performance Rating, P-rating) system was a figure of merit developed by AMD, Cyrix, IBM Microelectronics and SGS-Thomson in the mid-1990s (Cyrix announced it in February 1996) as a method of comparing their x86 processors to those of r ...
. In total he won 7 gold, 2 silver and 2 bronze individual medals.
* Paul Keres
Paul Keres (; 7 January 1916 – 5 June 1975) was an Estonian chess grandmaster and chess writer. He was among the world's top players from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s, and narrowly missed a chance at a World Chess Championship match on five ...
played his first three Olympiads for Estonia
Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...
, the rest for the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
.
See also
*Women's Chess Olympiad
The Women's Chess Olympiad is an event held by FIDE (the International Chess Federation) since 1957 (every two years since 1972), where national women's teams compete at chess for gold, silver and bronze medals. Since 1976 the Women's Chess Olympia ...
*World Team Chess Championship
The World Team Chess Championship is an international team chess event, eligible for the participation of 10 countries whose chess federations dominate their continent. It is played every two years. In chess, this tournament and the Chess Olympiads ...
*European Team Chess Championship
The European Team Championship (often abbreviated in texts and games databases as ''ETC'') is an international team chess event, eligible for the participation of European nations whose chess federations are located in zones 1.1 to 1.9. This more ...
*World Chess Championship
The World Chess Championship is played to determine the world champion in chess. The current world champion is Magnus Carlsen of Norway, who has held the title since 2013.
The first event recognized as a world championship was the World Chess ...
*Women's World Chess Championship
The Women's World Chess Championship (WWCC) is played to determine the world champion in women's chess. Like the World Chess Championship, it is administered by FIDE.
Unlike with most sports recognized by the International Olympic Committee, wher ...
*Russia (USSR) vs Rest of the World
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eigh ...
*European Chess Club Cup The European Chess Club Cup is an annual chess tournament for club teams from Europe. It is organised by the European Chess Union. The competition is held with the Swiss system over seven rounds. It consists of two sections, open and women's, with e ...
*World Mind Sports Games
The World Mind Sports Games (WMSG) was a multi-sport event created by the International Mind Sports Association (IMSA) as a "stepping stone on the path of introducing a third kind of Olympic Games" after the Summer and the Winter Olympics".
The i ...
*Mind Sports Organisation
The Mind Sports Organisation (MSO) is an association for promoting mind sports including Contract Bridge, Chess, Go, Mastermind, and Scrabble. Since 1997 it has annually organised in England a multi-sport competition, the Mind Sports Olympiad.
...
*Correspondence Chess Olympiad The Correspondence Chess Olympiad is a correspondence chess tournament in which teams from all over the world compete. International Correspondence Chess Federation organises the tournament.
Correspondence Chess Olympiads
Ladies Correspondence C ...
References
External links
FIDE Handbook: Chess Olympiads
OlimpBase: Chess Olympiads
* Student Chess Olympiad
{{Authority control
Recurring sporting events established in 1924
Biennial sporting events
Chess competitions