17th Chess Olympiad

The 17th Chess Olympiad, organized by FIDE and comprising an open team tournament, as well as several other events designed to promote the game of chess, took place between October 23 and November 20, 1966, in Havana, Cuba.

The Soviet team with 6 GMs, led by world champion Petrosian, lived up to expectations and won their eighth consecutive gold medals, with the United States and Hungary taking the silver and bronze, respectively.

Ex-champion Tal was beaten up in a bar shortly before the Olympiad and missed the first five rounds due to his injuries.

When Hungary and Yugoslavia tied on both game and match points, and they had drawn 2-2 with each other, the rules dictated that the final ranking would be decided by using the Neustadtl score - but not which version of it. A socalled unweighted score was used, which placed Hungary ahead of Yugoslavia, giving them the bronze medals. Had the weighted variant been used instead, the result would have been the other way around.

Results

19th Chess Olympiad

The 19th Chess Olympiad, comprising an open team tournament as well as the annual FIDE congress, took place between September 5 and 27, 1970, in Siegen, West Germany.

The Soviet team with six Grandmasters, led by world champion Boris Spassky, lived up to expectations and won their tenth consecutive gold medal, although only by a single point, with Hungary and Yugoslavia taking the silver and bronze, respectively.

Tournament report

Held at the Siegerland Hall venue, a total of 64 nations applied to enter the tournament. Unfortunately, space constraints and FIDE's intended model format meant that only 60 could be accommodated. It was then found that four teams were to have their applications rejected on the grounds that they had missed the deadline. These four teams were: Argentina, France, Ecuador, and Venezuela. When Panama withdrew their application, Argentina took their place.

The tournament was run as a two-stage round-robin. Six preliminary groups of 10 teams each determined the composition of five Finals of 12 teams each, with the top two from each group ending up in Final A etc. Several unsatisfactory aspects of this system were voiced, however, and they manifested themselves in a variety of ways.

31st Chess Olympiad

The 31st Chess Olympiad, organized by FIDE and comprising an open and a women's tournament, took place between November 30 and December 17, 1994, in Moscow, Russia. Both tournament sections were officiated by international arbiter Yuri Averbakh of Russia.

The record number of nations once again counted some old faces playing under new flags. Yugoslavia was back, but now represented by the federation of Serbia-Montenegro. Another former Yugoslav republic, Macedonia, also made its debut, as did the Czech Republic and Slovakia who competed individually for the first time. Finally, the International Braille Chess Association entered two truly international teams.

The Russian team retained their title, captained by PCA world champion Kasparov. Due to a dispute with the national federation, FIDE champion Anatoly Karpov was not present. A strong performance from Bosnia-Herzegovina, led by Nikolić, earned them the silver, while the Russian "B" team of juniors, somewhat surprisingly, took the bronze - the first and only time that the same nation has occupied more than one medal rank.

41st Chess Olympiad

The 41st Chess Olympiad, organised by the Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE) and comprising an open and women's tournament, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, took place in Tromsø, Norway from 1–14 August 2014. The organiser was Chess Olympiad Tromsø 2014 AS on behalf of FIDE.

A total number of 1,570 players participated at the Olympiad, with 881 in the men and 689 in the women's section. The number of participating teams was 177 from 172 countries in the open section and 136 from 131 countries in the women's section. The main competitive events were held at Mackhallen. The Chief Arbiter of the event was Greece's International Arbiter Panagiotis Nikolopoulos. The reigning World Champion, Norwegian Grandmaster Magnus Carlsen, was one of the eight official ambassadors. He also played as a member of one of the Norwegian teams.

China won the open section of the tournament for the first time, while Russia claimed victory in the women's section for the third consecutive time as well as third time overall. Chinese Yu Yangyi, playing on board three, and Georgian Nana Dzagnidze, playing on board one, were the most successful players in the open and women's sections, respectively. The event was also the last competitive tournament for Judit Polgár, the strongest female chess player in history, who announced her retirement from competitive chess in the rest day of the Olympiad. Playing as a reserve player for Hungary in the open section, she won a silver medal with her team and recorded four wins, one loss and one draw for a total score 4½/6.