The Chess Olympiad is the biggest team chess competition in the world. Almost every country sends a team, and thousands of players take part over about two weeks.
Unlike a normal tournament where a person plays just for themselves, at the Olympiad, players represent their whole country, sitting on boards numbered one to five, with board one usually being a team’s strongest player.
To compare how well different players did, even across different years, chess experts use something called a Tournament Performance Rating.
In simple words, TPR estimates how strong a player’s rating would be if their results from just that one event were used to judge them. If someone beats a lot of very strong players and barely ever loses, their TPR can shoot up far above their normal rating for that short stretch of games.
Top 10 Greatest Chess Olympiad Performances Of All Time
Below are ten of the greatest individual performances in Chess Olympiad history.
| Player Name | Nationality |
|---|---|
| Gukesh Dommaraju | India |
| Andrei Volokitin | Ukraine |
| Robert Gwaze | Zimbabwe |
| Alexander Alekhine | France |
| Arjun Erigaisi | India |
| Garry Kasparov | Soviet Union |
| Baadur Jobava | Georgia |
| Jorge Cori | Peru |
| Tigran Petrosian | Soviet Union |
| Nana Dzagnidze | Georgia |
1. Gukesh Dommaraju
Gukesh played board one for India at the 2024 Olympiad in Budapest and scored 9 points out of 10, winning eight games and drawing two, without a single loss. This gave him a performance rating of 3056, the highest ever recorded in Chess Olympiad history. His result helped India win its first-ever gold medal in the Open section.
A few months after this tournament, in December 2024, Gukesh went on to defeat Ding Liren and become the World Chess Champion at just 18 years old, making him the youngest undisputed world champion ever. As of 2026, he is still an active top player and is getting ready to defend his title.
2. Andrei Volokitin
Andrei Volokitin played as Ukraine’s reserve player at the 2016 Olympiad in Baku and had a remarkable run, winning eight of his nine games and drawing just one. This gave him a performance rating of 2992, which was the highest TPR ever recorded at an Olympiad until Gukesh broke the record eight years later in 2024.
Andrei Volkitin’s strong results helped Ukraine win the team silver medal.
Volokitin is still an active grandmaster today, with a rating in the low 2600s. He played in tournaments as recently as 2025 and continues to represent Ukraine.
3. Robert Gwaze
Gwaze, an International Master representing Zimbabwe, achieved something extremely rare at the 2002 Chess Olympiad in Bled; he won all nine of his games on board one, a perfect 100 per cent score.
This gave him a performance rating of 2690, and it was good enough to win him the individual gold medal ahead of several strong grandmasters, including former World Champion Garry Kasparov.
Robert Gwaze never quite managed to earn his final Grandmaster title, partly because of a lack of funding for international travel. Over the years, he lived and played in Zimbabwe, Malaysia, Singapore, and England, and today he works mainly as a chess coach. He still plays occasionally, and he won the Namibia Open in 2024.
4. Alexander Alekhine
Long before the TPR system existed, the reigning World Champion, Alexander Alekhine, playing for France, won every single one of his nine games on board one at the 1930 Olympiad in Hamburg.
He is one of only two players in history to score a perfect 9 out of 9 on board one, the other being Robert Gwaze, 72 years later. Because he did not play enough total games that year to qualify under the medal rules of the time, he was not officially given an individual medal for it, but the achievement itself is still considered legendary.
Alekhine passed away in 1946. He remains the only World Chess Champion in history to die while still holding the title.
5. Arjun Erigaisi
Arjun Erigaisi played board three for India at the 2024 Olympiad and won his first six games in a row, the only player in the entire Open section to do that. He finished the tournament with 10 points out of 11, the highest raw point score of any player at the event, giving him a performance rating of 2968. His strong results were a key reason India won its first-ever team gold medal.
Erigaisi remains very active. By December 2024, he had crossed a rating of 2800, becoming only the second Indian player ever to do so after Viswanathan Anand, and he reached as high as world number 3. As of late 2025, he continues competing at the top level, including winning medals in rapid and blitz events.
6. Garry Kasparov
A 17-year-old Kasparov made his Olympiad debut in 1980 in Valletta, Malta, playing as the Soviet Union’s second reserve. He scored 9.5 points out of 12, becoming the youngest player ever to represent the USSR at the event.
He won an individual bronze medal for his board and helped the Soviet Union win the team gold medal, an early sign of the dominance that was still to come.
Kasparov retired from professional chess in 2005, after holding the world number one ranking for a record 255 months.
7. Baadur Jobava
Playing on Georgia’s top board at the 2016 Olympiad, Jobava used his trademark unconventional and creative openings to defeat several strong grandmasters, including Veselin Topalov and Ruslan Ponomariov. He finished with 8 points out of 10, earning a performance rating of 2926.
Jobava is still an active grandmaster known for his imaginative, attacking style. He has won the Georgian national championship five times, most recently in 2026.
8. Jorge Cori
At the 2018 Chess Olympiad in Batumi, Cori played board three for Peru and conceded only half a point across his eight games, defeating China’s Wei Yi along the way. His score of 7.5 out of 8 gave him a performance rating of 2925, earning him the individual gold medal ahead of former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik, who took silver on the same board.
Cori remains an active grandmaster representing Peru. He continued playing in the FIDE World Cup as recently as 2025 and still competes for his national Olympiad team.
9. Tigran Petrosian
Nicknamed “Iron Tigran” for his famously solid and hard-to-beat style, Petrosian played board one for the Soviet Union at the 1968 Chess Olympiad in Lugano and won this event without losing a single game, finishing with 10.5 points out of 12. Across his entire Olympiad career, spanning ten Olympiads from 1958 to 1978, he lost just one game out of well over a hundred played, one of the greatest overall records in the event’s history.
Petrosian, the ninth World Chess Champion from 1963 to 1969, passed away in 1984.
10. Nana Dzagnidze
Nan Dzagnidze played board one for Georgia at the 2014 Olympiad in Tromso and delivered the best board-one performance of the entire women’s section that year. She scored 8 points out of 9, giving her a performance rating of 2719, and finished ahead of stars like Hou Yifan and Pia Cramling to win the individual gold medal.
Dzagnidze is still an active grandmaster and a key player for Georgia’s national team. She won the Georgian Women’s Championship as recently as 2025 and continues to compete internationally.
Also Read: Top 10 Chess Players With Highest FIDE Ratings Ever
