India wins Chess Olympiad as Gukesh achieves 3000+ tournament rating

After a breakout performance at the 2022 Chess Olympiad, Dommaraju Gukesh went one step further this year in Budapest as he led his country to first place and also secured the individual gold. With the Indian women’s team also winning their competition, it marked an unprecedented national double.

Eight wins and two draws against the world’s best: not a bad way to etch yourself into the chess record books at the age of eighteen. In 2022, Gukesh played on the first board of India’s second team (as the host nation has the option of fielding three teams instead of one), and finished the tournament with a tournament performance rating of 2867.

This time around he is in even better form, breaking the almost impossible 3000 TPR barrier at the 2024 Chess Olympiad with a score of 9/10, losing only two half points to Hungary’s Richárd Rapport and Uzbekistan’s Nodirbek Abdusattorov. His victories over Wei Yi and Fabiano Caruana played a major role in the final tournament result. With a whopping 30 points won and a display of great tirelessness, he must now be seen as the big favorite for the upcoming World Championship match against Ding Liren.

India won the Open competition this year with a canter, leading the entire match and drawing only once against Uzbekistan, and won the Olympiad with a full round to spare. Things were a little more exciting in the women’s event, where the Indian and Kazakh teams went into the final round on equal scores, but the former had a head-to-head advantage. In the end, no tiebreakers were needed as India defeated Azerbaijan by a score of 3.5-0.5, while Kazakhstan drew 2-2 with the United States to take second place.

With this result, Gukesh has achieved the second highest tournament performance ever recorded at an elite event, with a TPR of 3056 which is still some way behind Caruana’s 8.5/10 at the 2014 Sinquefield Cup. The World Championship challenger will now jump to 2794 Elo in the classic live ratings list, although incredibly his compatriot Arjun Erigaisi still sits ahead of him on 2797 after a very impressive Olympiad of his own, which sees them sit third and fifth in the world rankings respectively.