Koneru Humpy
India and Russia were both announced as joint winners of the gold medal at the Fide Chess Olympiad by Fide president Arkady Dvorkovich on Saturday.
Russia were initially awarded the elusive medal after two Indian players - Nihal Sarin and Divya Deshmukh - lost time after a server crash. India appealed to the controversial decision.
Fide later reversed the decision and will later issue a statement regarding the sam. It was for the first time that Fide aws holding the Chess Olympiad in an online format.
Benoit The Indian team, being represented by Captain Vidit Gujrathi, former world champion Viswanathan Anand, Koneru Humpy, D Harika, young prodigy R Praggnanandhaa, Pentala Harikrishna, Nihal Sarin and Divya Deshmukh, were playing in their first Olympiad final against Russia.
"We are the champions !! Congrats Russia!," the legendary Viswanathan Anand wrote on his twitter handle after the final.
The first round of the final ended in a 3-3 draw with all the six games finishing in stalemate. Russia won the second round 4.5-1.5 with wins for Andrey Esipenko over Sarin and Polina Shuvalova over Deshmukh, leading to a controversy as the Indians claimed the losses were due to connection issues.
In the second round, Anand, coming in for P Harikrishna, had drawn with Ian Nepomniachtchi while captain Vidit Gujrathi drew with Daniil Dubov.
Koneru Humpy, the world rapid champion, was beaten by Alexandra Goryachkina and D Harika drew with Alexandra Kosteniuk.
In the first round matches, Gujrathi drew Nepomniachtchi, while Harikrishna and Vladimir Artemiev shared the honours.
In other matches, Humpy and Harika drew with Lagno and Kosteniuk respectively, while young prodigy R Praggnanandhaa and Deshmukh, too, held their opponents.
Reacting to the win, Humpy said, "Well it is a bit strange that we lost due to serve failure and our appeal was accepted. Well I can say, we fought till the end."
(With PTI inputs)
