Back to Back Olympiad Gold

The 38th World Chess Olympiad is over and Team Armenia won the gold for the second straight time!

The Olympiad champions who were 9th seed at the start of the tournament finished with 9 points followed by 8th seed Israel who went on to capture the silver with 8 points and taking home the bronze is 10th seed Team USA who also scored 8 points but had to yield to 3rd spot when tiebreaks were applied.

For a complete list of the final rankings of the Open Category, visit chess-results.com.

Individual board prizes will show us GM's Peter Leko of Hungary and Boris Gelfand of Israel sharing the top spot among the elite board one players with a score of 10 points.

And in board 2, GM Vladimir Akopian of Armenia ranked number one with 8 points and followed by GM Francisco Pons Vallejo of Spain with 9 points, hmmm? Why is that? Maybe it has something to do with tiebreaks. Our very own GM Wesley So took the 11th spot, congratulations!

Board 3 top performer was taken by another Armenian, GM Gabriel Sargissian with a score of 9 points.

Board 4 top performer goes to GM Dragisa Blagojevic of Montenegro with 8 points. Newly-minted GM John Paul Gomez joins the elite 20 opn the 19th, congratulations!

Board 5 goes to GM Dmitry Jakovenko of Russia with a total of 7 points out of 9 games. GM Darwin Laylo takes his spot in the elite 20 on the 19th, congratulations!

In the Women's section, we have 4th seed Georgia winning the gold with 8 points, 2nd seed Ukraine winning silver with 8 points and 7th seed USA taking the bronze with a score of 8 points, tiebreaks applied.

Here is the complete list of the final rankings of the women's category.

For the Individual board prizes, we have GM Chiburdanidze Maia of Georgia winning with 7.5 points for board 1, IM Anna Zatonskih of USA on board 2 with 8 points,IM Kosintseva Nadezhda of Russia on board 3, IM Majdan Joanna of Poland on board 4 and WGM Zdebskaja Natalia of Ukraine on board 5. Interestingly, RP ladies' Camacho Chardine Cheradee and Bernales Christy Lamiel joins the elite 20 for their board assignments (4 and 5) on 17th and 15th respectively, congratulations!

For our RP Team Individual performances, click on Men's Team and Women's Team.

Congratulations to everyone who considers himself/herself to be part of the chess kingdom for this successful Olympiad shows the whole world that chess is very much alive and relevant today and forevermore.

This is another learning experience not just for the players but also for the NCFP people who man the management aspect of chess in the Philippines. We could have seen GM Eugene Torre score points on board 1 had he not excused himself from the National Qualifying which I believe should be the basis of any team composition. We all know that he's a legend but hey, let's follow rules ok?

To all our players who represented our country very well on and off the board, thank you!