The unprecedented history-making-ness of India’s double gold at the 2024 FIDE Chess Olympiad speaks for itself. Before this, in over-the-board official Olympiads, India had never done better than bronze (twice for the men: in 2014 and 2022 and once for the women: in 2022).
With two golds – in Open and Women – they’ve taken all that unimpressive history in the tournament (this is the 45th edition), smashed it out of the park and taken Indian chess to a whole new level.
Dommaraju Gukesh, the 18-year-old who will compete in the World Championship match in December, won an individual gold. As did three others: Arjun Erigaisi, Divya Deshmukh, and Vantika Agrawal.
Gukesh’s was an all-time great performance as he rampaged through the tournament beating three players with 2700+ ratings and drawing one other in that bracket. He’s one of only four ever to have crossed 3000 in tournament performance ratings at a major classical chess tournament.
India team spirit! Celebration time! Olympiad Champions!
����������������#BudapestOlympiad #FIDE100 @FIDE_chess @aicfchess @WOMChess pic.twitter.com/jzJXBzQOs1
– Susan Polgar (@SusanPolgar) September 22, 2024
Divya, also 18, was in stunning form. At certain times she seemed to pull India up by the scruff of the neck, winning from impossible situations (once with 17 seconds on the clock, and three pawns down) and keeping the pressure up with bare aggression. She ended the tournament on an incredible score of 9.5/11 (eight wins, three draws) and a TPR of 2605 – to go up a whopping 17.5 points in the live ratings (the biggest gain in the women’s top 50 rankings this Olympiad).
Neither Gukesh’s nor Divya’s performance would have mattered, though, if the others hadn’t played so well. And that’s what makes the Olympiad so unique.
In a sport that most perceive as an individual one, an Olympiad gold may not seem particularly big, especially for the casual fan, but look at the names on the list of competitors and you can see what it means – just how big it is – in the chess world.
For instance, the great Garry Kasparov won eight golds, and to underline just how difficult that is, the legendary Bobby Fischer only managed two silvers and the GOAT Magnus Carlsen has won no Olympiad medals. This is a test of a nation’s collective strength in a way no other tournament does in the chess world. And India now have two golds in it.
In many ways, this is Viswanathan Anand’s legacy in its most impressive form yet. GM (and world no 2) Hikaru Nakamura posted on social media prematurely on Saturday about India’s gold, heaping praise on Anand, saying, “It is truly unfathomable how this kid would come from a country with no chess culture and not only become World Champion but inspire generations of Indian kids to push chess forward.”
He was immediately inundated with replies about how the sport originated in India (as many historians believe). They all missed the salient point, though… till Anand came onto the scene, India was nowhere on the biggest stages of the world game. For three decades and more, it was only Anand who was up there.
It is truly unfathomable how this kid would come from a country with no chess culture and not only become World Champion, but inspire generations of Indian kids to push chess forward. The legend, @vishy64theking! Huge congratulations to India for winning the @ChessOlympiad! pic.twitter.com/zpLbekK1mu
– Hikaru Nakamura (@GMHikaru) September 21, 2024
Not anymore, though. From under Anand’s mammoth shadow, Indian chess has taken a big step up on the path to embracing the great man. If five Indians being at the FIDE Candidates tournament was an indication, this unprecedented double (and the nature of the performances of the 10 Indians there) has confirmed it. The men’s result spoke of a collective dominance the country had never seen before – of the 44 matches they played in Budapest; they lost only one. Their margin of victory was four (21 to 17), a gap never before seen in this tournament.
The women’s campaign spoke of a rare ability to hold their nerve when it mattered most – winning big matches, closing out clutch moments – as they came from behind to seal the gold.
Their ages give great belief to the Indian fan: of the five men, three are below 22 years old. Of the five women, three are below 23. All of them also have that lovely combination of self-confidence and humble simplicity that had set Anand apart from most chess greats – the generations of kids inspired by him also aspire to be just like him.
Individually too Anand’s footsteps are being walked upon impressively. Before Budapest, only Anand had crossed 2790 in the FIDE ratings. Now there are two more… and they’re both in the world’s top five. As per live ratings, Arjun is world no.3 and Gukesh is no. 5, and the milestone 2800 rating can’t come soon enough.
For Gukesh, it may come by the end of this year when he goes toe-to-toe with world champion Ding Liren and aims to become the first Indian since Anand to be crowned king. If the Chess Olympiad is any indicator, though, whether he succeeds or not, that match too will be another notch in this generation’s list of milestone moments that are already starting to push the game beyond the singular track it’s plied in India for so long.
