The Norwegian team did not leave the debut – Newspaper Kommersant No. 141 (7342) of 08/05/2022

The World Chess Olympiad, which is now taking place in the Indian city of Chennai, in the absence of two strongest teams – Russian and Chinese – turned out to be extremely rich in sensation. By the middle of the tournament, the teams that were not included in the list of favorites before the start of the competition, the team of Armenia and the second team of India, became leaders. And the Norwegian team led by the reigning world champion Magnus Carlsen, having lost to the middle peasants, meanwhile settled down in the depths of the standings and, it seems, finally parted with any chances for medals.

The most interesting event of the World Chess Olympiad, which is being hosted by Indian Chennai, looks like the failure of the Norwegian team at the moment. After six rounds, that is, half of the matches, the Norwegians, led by world champion Magnus Carlsen, are only 56th in the standings.

Before the start of the competition, the Norwegian team was among the nominal favorites of the Olympiad, along with the teams of the USA and India, and Carlsen, who had previously refused to participate in the match for the chess crown, spoke openly in an interview about his claims to the Olympic medals: “There is only one team stronger than us here – American.”

But the Norwegians, apparently, will have to part with these claims. The team, which quite easily dealt with the outsiders from Lebanon and Uruguay in the first rounds, then made a series of misfires. First, she stumbled in a match with the Italians, whose average rating does not reach 2600, then she tied with an even weaker Mongolian team, and already in the sixth round she earned another defeat – this time from the Australians.

Actually, Magnus Carlsen shows excellent results at the Olympiad: the world champion, who missed the starting round, scored four victories in five games and shared the score with his opponent in only one. True, he is forced to play with chess players who, under other circumstances, would hardly ever find themselves at the same board with him. Zambian chess player Gillan Bwalye, who does not even have grandmaster status (his rating is only 2396), he mated in just 26 moves.

Meanwhile, the pool of leaders was formed by teams that, on the contrary, were not particularly considered as serious contenders for medals. The tournament table, in the absence of the two strongest teams – the Chinese, which misses the Olympics due to another outbreak of coronavirus in the country, as well as the Russian, which was not allowed due to sanctions, is currently headed by the Armenian team. It seemed that after the high-profile transfer to the US national team Levon Aronian, who for many years remained its first number, she would not be able to compete with the nominal favorites of the tournament.

But, on the contrary, things are going pretty well for her. The Armenian team, together with the veteran Gabriel Sargsyan, who won three times at the World Chess Olympiads in its composition, never lost and drew only one match. In the world, she broke up with the second Indian team (India, as the host country, received an expanded quota and fielded three teams at once). This team, with a super talented junior, 16-year-old Rameshbabu Pragnanandha, who is often compared by specialists to the young Carlsen, is kept in the top three.

In addition to the Armenian and the second Indian teams, after six stages, another American team retains the chances for gold.

The US team, which consists exclusively of world chess stars like the aforementioned Levon Aronian, Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So and Leinier Dominguez, would definitely be in the lead if not for one mistake she made. In the fourth round, Caruana, who played at the first board, lost to 17-year-old Uzbek grandmaster Nodirbek Abdusattorov, so the match ended in a draw.

Ekaterina Remizova