Good Sports: INDIA SHARES GOLD IN CHESS AFTER INTERNET OUTAGE
An internet outage during the final of the 163-nation Chess Olympiad prompted Fide, the international chess federation, to declare Russia and India as joint winners and gold medalists.
The controversial decision was made by Fide’s Russian president, Arkady Dvorkovich, who upheld an appeal by India after two of its junior players lost games through a disconnection. The teams had been tied 3-3 before the outage, blamed on a server failure at Chess.com.
India had never before won gold at the biennial team tournament, played online this year because of the pandemic. The country’s 12-member team included veterans such as 50-year-old former world champion Vishwanathan Anand and junior stars such as 14-year-old Divya Deshmukh.
“The best part about this win is that it showed the depth of chess in India,” Anand told The Times of India. “Every player in the team kicked in at some point, clinched some decisive matches and that makes me really happy.”
Compiled and partly written by Indian humorist MELVIN DURAI, author of the novel Bala Takes the Plunge.
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