India Scripts History, Wins Double Gold In Chess Olympiad 2024

India scripted history by winning the men’s and women’s teams clinched double gold medals in the 45th Chess Olympiad. Both the teams bagged their maiden gold medal in the history of the championship.

Maiden Double For India At Chess Olympiad 2024

D Gukesh, Arjun Erigaisi and R Praggnanadhaa won their respective matches in the 11th and final round match of Chess Olympiad 2024 to guide the men’s team to the historic victory as they defeated Slovenia. 

Gukesh was at his element in the technical phase of the game as black against Vladimir Fedoseev. The 18-year-old Grandmaster was spot on with his tremendous strategic display and made history by securing his second individual gold medal. He remained unbeaten throughout the tournament, achieving 9 wins and a draw in 10 matches.

 

Erigaise also emerged triumph with black on the third board against Jan Subeli out of a surprising Centre Counter defense game. He was named the best performer with 10 wins out of 11 games. 

On the other hand, Praggnanadhaa scored a dominating victory over Anton Demchenko, as India claimed 3-0 triumph over Slovenia with one game still to go.

The Indian men finished with an impressive 21 points out of a possible 22. They conceded just a lone 2-2 draw to Uzbekistan while beating the rest of the opponents.

After winning the first eight rounds in succession, India were virtually assured of a gold medal ahead of the 11th and final round, as they were held to a 2-2 stalemate by Uzbekistan in the ninth before beating USA on Saturday.

India dominated the Chess Olympiad 2024 in such a way that out of a total 44 games, they suffered just one loss when Pragganandhaa was beaten by Wesley So of USA in the penultimate round.

The women’s team beat Azerbaijan 3.5-0.5 to clinch the title. D Harika struck on the top board for the team and Divya Deshmukh yet again prevailed over her opponent to confirm her individual gold medal on the third board as well.

After R Vaishali drew her game, the Indian women’s team confirmed the victory with Vantika Agrawal scoring another remarkable win Chess Olympiad 2024.

Indian men had earlier won two bronze twice – in 2014 and 2022 – in the tournament. Indian women had won a bronze in the 2022 edition in Chennai. At Chess Olympiad 2024, India not only won their first ever gold medal, but achieved a golden double.

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The erstwhile Soviet Union had dominated the Open as well as the Women’s Category However, before India’s incredible clean sweep on Sunday, the feat had only been achieved once since the USSR’s double in 1986 when China won both the categories in the 2018 edition in Batumi, Georgia.

India thus became only the third nation to complete this feat since the Open and Women’s Chess Olympiads were conducted simultaneously for the first time in 1972.