The Chess Olympiad is being held this year in Chennai, India, the birthplace of chess, which is also the hometown of former world chess champion Viswanathan Anand. The weather in the city is cool even by local standards, the maximum air temperature for the next few days is around +34, but it will stay at +30 degrees during the Olympics.
A total of 188 countries will participate in the Olympics, 186 teams with 937 participants will be in the open tournament, which is mostly played by men, and the women’s tournament will have 160 teams with 799 participants. This time chess athletes from Russia, Belarus and China will not play in the Chess Olympiad. The final composition of the Olympics may still change, as some teams have difficulties with arrival – problems in the aviation industry, where a flight is canceled or delayed from time to time. The Latvian national team successfully arrived in India on Wednesday morning.
Chess games will start on Friday, July 29, at 12.30 Latvian time.
“I was welcomed very hospitably. At least five airport staff were just around me, I don’t understand why so many. One held a suitcase, another a passport, another something else. Welcomed as a VIP, helped to complete all airport formalities. On arrival in Chennai, the number of greeters tripled. The conditions are very good. Participants live in five-star hotels. Only cold soup is not on offer,” says Toms Kalniņš, general secretary of the Latvian Chess Federation, who will also participate in the FIDE (International Chess Federation) Congress in India, which is being held in parallel with the Olympics, about his arrival in India.
What to watch during the Olympics? Of course, for the Latvian chess team. You can also follow the Norwegian team, where the world champion Magnus Carlsen will play at the first table. The US team has an extremely strong team, but the host country India has prepared three whole teams, and each of them can compete for medals – the second team of India could start better than the main team, because it has a lot of young, super talented chess players.
