Viswanathan Anand: India’s Chess Olympiad 2024 triumph a high watermark

After erring at the last hurdle in 2022 in Chennai, India’s chess squads brought glory by winning the open and the women’s gold medals at the Chess Olympiad in Budapest. Viswanathan Anand, the iconic Grandmaster, has stated that retaining the titles will be a challenge to defend the crown two years hence.

“A chess team like in the Olympiad is a collection of the sum of the scores of four individual boards. That’s clear. But it shows the depth we have. One of the reasons I thought India was one of the favourites this year is simply because we could afford one or two accidents in every other round,” Anand said during a meet and greet organised by the Sports Journalists Association of Mumbai ahead of the Global Chess League.

“In every game, one or two boards could go wrong. You know that still the players are so prominent in many boards that things might work out for us. Now, I try to be realistic and imagine that in future Olympiads it won’t be this easy. That this was in fact a high watermark. But then again, especially in this generation, this very talented generation constantly surprises with what they can do.”

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Anand admitted that he wouldn’t have imagined during his formative years about such a strong Indian contingent at an Olympiad. “I am not that much of a futurologist. I wouldn’t have been able to imagine that. But you could see that the popularity of the game was growing steadily for several decades. Slowly barrier after barrier is being crossed,” Anand said.

“If you look at it from that point of view, then I think what has happened in the last five years doesn’t come as such a big surprise. Though the extent of it, perhaps, or how quickly it happened is interesting. Just to remind people, we could have won two gold medals in Chennai (in 2022).”