Chess Olympiad

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The Chess Olympiad is a biennial chess event in which teams from all over the world compete against each other. The event is organised by FIDE who selects the host nation.

Contents 1 Birth of the Olympiad 2 Recognised sport 3 Competition 4 Men's Olympiads 5 Best individual results in men's Olympiads 6 See also 7 Notes 8 External links

[edit] Birth of the Olympiad

The first Olympiad was unofficial. For the 1924 Olympics an attempt was made to include chess in the Olympics Games but this failed because of problems with distinguishing between amateur and professional players.^[1] While the 1924 Summer Olympics was taking place in Paris, the 1st unofficial Chess Olympiad also took place in Paris. FIDE was formed on Sunday, July 20, 1924, the closing day of the 1st unofficial Chess Olympiad.^[2] FIDE organised the first Official Olympiad in 1927 which took place in London.^[1] The Olympiads where occasionally held annually and irregular intervals until World War II; since 1950 they have been held regularly every two years.^[1]

[edit] Recognised sport

Chess is a recognized sport by the International Olympic Committee^[3] with FIDE being the recognized International Sports Federation for chess since June 1999.^[3][4][5][6] As a member of the International Olympic Committee, FIDE adheres to its rules, including controversially having doping tests.^{[7][8][9][10]} The prospects of chess becoming an Olympic sporting event at some future date remain unclear.

[edit] Competition

Each FIDE recognized chess association can enter a team into the Olympiad (for the UK one team for each of the four countries plus Guernsey can enter a team separately).^[1] Each team is made of up to six players, four regular players and two reserves.^[1] Initially each teams played all the teams but as the event grow over the years this became impossible.^[1] At first team seeding took place before the competition.^[1] Later certain drawbacks where recognized with seeding and in 1976 a Swiss tournament system was adopted.^[1]

The trophy for winning the men's team is the Hamilton-Russell Cup,^[1] which was offered by the English magnate Frederick Hamilton-Russell as a prize for the 1st Olympiad (London 1927). The cup is kept by the winning team until the next event, when it will be consigned to the next winner. The trophy for the winning women's team is known as the Vera Menchik Cup the first Women's World Chess Champion.

The 2008 Olympiad is scheduled to be held in Dresden, Germany.^[11] The 2010 Olympiad is expected to be held in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia.

[edit] Men's Olympiads

Year	Event	Location	Gold	Silver	Bronze
1924	1st unofficial Chess Olympiad The Chess Olympiad (individual)	Paris	Czechoslovakia 31	Hungary 30	Switzerland 29
1926	2nd unofficial Chess Olympiad The Team Tournament (part of FIDE summit)	Budapest	Hungary 9	Yugoslavia 8	Romania 5
1927	1st Chess Olympiad	London	Hungary 40	Denmark 38.5	England 36.5
1928	2nd Chess Olympiad	The Hague	Hungary 44	USA 39.5	Poland 37
1930	3rd Chess Olympiad	Hamburg	Poland 48.5	Hungary 47	Germany 44.5
1931	4th Chess Olympiad	Prague	USA 48	Poland 47	Czechoslovakia 46.5
1933	5th Chess Olympiad	Folkestone	USA 39	Czechoslovakia 37.5	Sweden 34
1935	6th Chess Olympiad	Warsaw	USA 54	Sweden 52.5	Poland 52
1936	3rd unofficial Chess Olympiad non-FIDE unofficial Chess Olympiad	Munich	Hungary 110.5	Poland 108	Germany 106.5
1937	7th Chess Olympiad	Stockholm	USA 54.5	Hungary 48.5	Poland 47
1939	8th Chess Olympiad	Buenos Aires	Germany 36	Poland 35.5	Estonia 33.5
1950	9th Chess Olympiad	Dubrovnik	Yugoslavia 45.5	Argentina 43.5	W. Germany 40.5
1952	10th Chess Olympiad	Helsinki	USSR 21	Argentina 19.5	Yugoslavia 19
1954	11th Chess Olympiad	Amsterdam	USSR 34	Argentina 27	Yugoslavia 26.5
1956	12th Chess Olympiad	Moscow	USSR 31	Yugoslavia 26.5	Hungary 26.5
1958	13th Chess Olympiad	Munich	USSR 34.5	Yugoslavia 29	Argentina 25.5
1960	14th Chess Olympiad	Leipzig	USSR 34	USA 29	Yugoslavia 27
1962	15th Chess Olympiad	Varna	USSR 31.5	Yugoslavia 28	Argentina 26
1964	16th Chess Olympiad	Tel Aviv	USSR 36.5	Yugoslavia 32	W. Germany 30.5
1966	17th Chess Olympiad	Havana	USSR 39.5	USA 34.5	Hungary 33.5
1968	18th Chess Olympiad	Lugano	USSR 39.5	Yugoslavia 31	Bulgaria 30
1970	19th Chess Olympiad	Siegen	USSR 27.5	Hungary 26.5	Yugoslavia 26
1972	20th Chess Olympiad	Skopje	USSR 42	Hungary 40.5	Yugoslavia 38
1974	21st Chess Olympiad	Nice	USSR 46	Yugoslavia 37.5	USA 36.5
1976	22nd Chess Olympiad *	Haifa	USA 37	Netherlands 36.5	England 35.5
1976	Against-Israeli Chess Olympiad	Tripoli	El Salvador	Tunisia	Pakistan
1978	23rd Chess Olympiad	Buenos Aires	Hungary 37	USSR 36	USA 35
1980	24th Chess Olympiad	Valletta	USSR 39	Hungary 39	USA 35
1982	25th Chess Olympiad	Lucerne	USSR 42.5	Czechoslovakia 36	USA 35
1984	26th Chess Olympiad	Thessaloniki	USSR 41	England 37	USA 35
1986	27th Chess Olympiad	Dubai	USSR 40	England 39	USA 38
1988	28th Chess Olympiad	Thessaloniki	USSR 40.5	England 34.5	Netherlands 34.5
1990	29th Chess Olympiad	Novi Sad	USSR 39	USA 35.5	England 35.5
1992	30th Chess Olympiad	Manila	Russia 39	Uzbekistan 35	Armenia 34.5
1994	31st Chess Olympiad	Moscow	Russia 37.5	Bosnia/Herzogovina 35	Russia II 34.5
1996	32nd Chess Olympiad	Yerevan	Russia 38.5	Ukraine 35	USA 34
1998	33rd Chess Olympiad	Elista	Russia 35.5	USA 34.5	Ukraine 32.5
2000	34th Chess Olympiad	Istanbul	Russia 38	Germany 37	Ukraine 35.5
2002	35th Chess Olympiad	Bled	Russia 38.5	Hungary 37.5	Armenia 35
2004	36th Chess Olympiad	Calviá	Ukraine 39.5	Russia 36.5	Armenia 36.5
2006	37th Chess Olympiad	Turin	Armenia 36	China 34	USA 33
2008	38th Chess Olympiad	Dresden
2010	39th Chess Olympiad	Khanty-Mansiysk

* In 1976 the USSR and other communist countries did not compete for political reasons.

[edit] Best individual results in men's Olympiads

Player	Country	Nr.	Games	Won	Drawn	Lost	%	Medals
Mikhail Tal	URS	8	101	65	34	2	81.2	5 - 2 - 0
Anatoly Karpov	URS	6	68	43	23	2	80.1	3 - 2 - 0
Tigran Petrosian	URS	10	129	78	50	1	79.8	6 - 0 - 0
Isaac Kashdan	USA	5	79	52	22	5	79.7	2 - 1 - 1
Vassily Smyslov	URS	9	113	69	42	2	79.6	4 - 2 - 2
David Bronstein	URS	4	49	30	18	1	79.6	3 - 1 - 0
Garry Kasparov	URS	9	82	50	29	3	78.7	7 - 2 - 2
Alexander Alekhine	FRA	5	72	43	27	2	78.5	2 - 2 - 0
Milan Matulovic	YUG	6	78	46	28	4	76.9	1 - 2 - 0
Paul Keres (1)	URS	10	141	85	44	12	75.9	5 - 1 - 1
Efim Geller	URS	7	76	46	23	7	75.6	3 - 3 - 0
James Tarjan	USA	5	51	32	13	6	75.5	2 - 1 - 0
Bobby Fischer	USA	4	65	40	18	7	75.4	2 - 1 - 0
Mikhail Botvinnik	URS	6	73	39	31	3	74.7	2 - 1 - 2
Salo Flohr	CSR	7	82	46	28	8	73.2	2 - 1 - 1

• Note: only players participating to at least four Olympiads are considered in this table.
• Country names are given with the IOC three-letter codes.
• Medals indicated are only individual ones (not team), in the order gold-silver-bronze.
• (1) Keres played for Estonia in his first three Olympiads.

[edit] See also

• European Team Championship
• Russia (USSR) vs Rest of the World
• Women's chess Olympiad
• World Mind Sports Games
• Mind Sports Organisation

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• FIDE Handbook: Chess Olympiad. FIDE Official website
  • FIDE Handbook: Children`s Olympiad. FIDE Official website
• OlimpBase: the encyclopaedia of team chess - descriptions and results of each Olympiad
  • Men's results summary
  • Women's results summary
  • Children's Chess Olympiad and results
• 37e Olimpiadi degli Scacchi - Torino 2006 - official 37th Chess Olympiad site
• The Sport of Chess - Part II chess4ever.com