India’s chess masters made history in the 45th International Chess Federation (FIDE) Chess Olympiad in Budapest by taking home team gold medals in the men’s and women’s divisions. In addition to winning the team championships, India also came away with four individual gold medals as the event closed up in the Hungarian capital. In the men’s event, also referred to as the Open event, victories for Gukesh Dommaraju (also known as Gukesh D), Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, and Arjun Erigaisi guaranteed gold. In the women’s competition, winners were Vaishali Rameshbabu, Harika Dronavalli, Divya Deshmukh, Vantika Agrawal, and Tania Sachdev.
On their respective boards, Gukesh, Erigaisi, Deshmukh, and Agrawal each won a gold medal. The legendary Indian chess player Viswanathan Anand called the achievement “unbelievable”. The outcome, according to Anand, who has previously won two Chess World Cups, was years in the making, but he was surprised that India was able to win both team and individual titles.
The men’s squad only lost one game and drew six while winning 27 of 44 games. In their last round of matches, they triumphed 3.5-0.5 over Slovenia, while the women’s team achieved the same result against Azerbaijan. After a few near misses in the past, Gukesh, who has also qualified for the World Chess Championship final in November, expressed his joy that his team crossed the finish line in a dominant manner. In the 2020 edition, held online during the COVID-19 epidemic, India and Russia were proclaimed joint winners in the men’s tournament.