India Won Silver in the Open Section and Bronze in the Women's Section at the 2026 Chess Olympiad in Samarkand and Kept the Best-Nation Trophy for a Third Edition in a Row

India’s open team finished second at the 46th Chess Olympiad in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, on 27 September 2026, and its women’s team finished third, FIDE (the World Chess Federation) reports. The two placings gave India the Nona Gaprindashvili Trophy for the third edition in a row, the prize for the federation with the best combined result across the two sections. The open team lost one match in eleven rounds.

Both medals were decided on tiebreak. The open team finished level with Germany on 18 match points, and the women’s team finished level on 17 with four other nations. The Olympiad ran from 15 to 27 September, with 11 classical rounds in each section, according to the official FIDE site.

The open section: 18 points, one defeat

ChessBase’s final table puts Uzbekistan first on 20 match points, from ten wins and one loss. India and Germany follow on 18, then the United States, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Hungary on 17. India’s record was eight wins, two draws and one defeat. Euronews says almost 400 teams from more than 190 countries played, with 205 in the open section and 189 in the women’s.

India started as the second seed, with Arjun Erigaisi, Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, Nihal Sarin, D. Gukesh and Vidit Gujrathi in the squad and Srinath Narayanan as captain, ChessBase India reported when the line-ups were confirmed. The squad had changed since 2024: Nihal Sarin took the place that Pentala Harikrishna held in Budapest.

India won its first five matches, Chess.com’s round 6 report shows, for 10 match points.

The Uzbekistan match in round 6

The hosts beat India 2.5 to 1.5 in round 6. Praggnanandhaa drew with Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Gukesh drew with Shamsiddin Vokhidov, and Erigaisi drew with Javokhir Sindarov, Chess.com reports. Nihal Sarin lost the deciding game to Nodirbek Yakubboev after blundering his queen from the better position. India dropped to a tie for seventh on 10 points.

It was the only match India lost. In round 8 the team drew 2 to 2 with Azerbaijan, where Gukesh missed a chance to win after 56 moves, Telangana Today reports. In round 9 India beat Germany 2.5 to 1.5: the other three games were drawn, and Gukesh won on the fourth board from a position Telangana Today describes as losing.

India then beat the second Uzbek team 3.5 to 0.5 in round 10, with Praggnanandhaa, Nihal Sarin and Gukesh winning and Erigaisi drawing. That left India on 17, a point behind the leaders, ChessBase says.

The last round and the tiebreak for silver

Uzbekistan beat Ukraine 2.5 to 1.5 on 27 September to finish on 20, FIDE says. India drew 2 to 2 with Hungary. Praggnanandhaa drew with Richard Rapport and Nihal Sarin drew with Benjamin Gledura, Erigaisi beat Peter Leko, and Gukesh lost to Gleb Dudin, according to ChessBase and Press Trust of India reports.

India and Germany ended level on 18 match points and, by National Herald’s count, on 28.5 game points. India took silver on tiebreak. National Herald attributes the order to the head-to-head result, which India won in round 9. ChessBase’s table does not label its tiebreak columns, so tuput cannot confirm which one the organisers applied.

The women’s team: one defeat, three draws and a bronze

India’s women were the top seed, with an average rating of 2476, ChessBase India reported. Koneru Humpy, Divya Deshmukh, Vaishali Rameshbabu, Vantika Agrawal and Savitha Shri B made up the squad, with Swayams Mishra as captain. Harika Dronavalli, who played in the 2024 gold-medal team, was not in the line-up.

India lost to Poland in round 5, then beat the United States 3 to 1 and Germany 3.5 to 0.5. The Germany match brought wins for Humpy, Divya and Savitha Shri, and Vaishali drew with Elisabeth Paehtz. It then drew with Kazakhstan, beat Uzbekistan 3 to 1 and drew with Georgia, ChessBase and Telangana Today report. Over eleven rounds the record was seven wins, three draws and one defeat.

China won the section with 20 points after beating Vietnam 3 to 1 in the last round. Kazakhstan took silver on 18. India finished on 17, together with the United States, Poland, Armenia and Mongolia, and ChessBase’s report says the tiebreak went in India’s favour. Its table shows India’s first tiebreak figure at 424, ahead of the United States on 418.

Savitha Shri’s nine points from ten games

Savitha Shri, 19, won her first seven games, and Telangana Today put her performance rating at 2955 at that point. ChessBase’s final report gives her 9 points from 10 games and a performance rating of 2569, which won the individual gold medal for the fifth board.

Her last game was a draw against Georgia’s Meri Arabidze. In the same round Humpy beat Nana Dzagnidze, Divya lost to Bella Khotenashvili and Vantika Agrawal drew with Lela Javakhishvili, Deccan Chronicle’s Press Trust of India report says.

Six individual medals

All India Radio counts six individual medals for India: Savitha Shri, Divya Deshmukh, Vantika Agrawal, Koneru Humpy, D. Gukesh and Praggnanandhaa. ChessBase’s women’s report gives Savitha Shri gold, Divya Deshmukh silver on 6.5 points from 10 games, Humpy bronze on 7 from 10 and Vantika Agrawal bronze on 6 from 8. FIDE lists Gukesh with the silver on board four. Deccan Chronicle’s Press Trust of India report lists a bronze for Praggnanandhaa, though it does not say on which board.

Gleb Dudin, the Hungarian who beat Gukesh in the last round, won gold as first reserve, and FIDE’s closing report also lists Abdusattorov, Wei Yi and Frederik Svane as the open golds on boards one to three.

The Gaprindashvili Trophy for a third time

FIDE’s closing report says the trophy goes to the federation with the best combined result in the open and women’s sections; FIDE calls it the Gaprindashvili Cup. India’s second place in the open and third place in the women’s section were enough to win it in 2026, All India Radio reports. It also won it in 2022 at the Chennai Olympiad, when India’s first team finished fourth in the open and third in the women’s section, and in 2024, when India won both sections in Budapest. That Budapest result, and the run of Indian chess since, is covered in India’s chess boom and the Olympiad.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated the players in a post on X reported on 28 September. “Their passion and determination are exemplary,” his post said, according to Telangana Today. Vice President C. P. Radhakrishnan also congratulated the medallists, All India Radio reports. Viswanathan Anand, the former world champion, was among the guests who joined the medal presentations at the closing ceremony, FIDE says.

The next Olympiad

The Olympiad flag was handed at the closing ceremony to representatives of the United Arab Emirates, which hosts the 47th Olympiad in 2028, FIDE’s closing report says.