Sunday turned out to be a historic day for India as their men’s and women’s chess teams clinched gold medals in their respective categories in the 45th Chess Olympiad. The men’s team defeated Slovenia after D Gukesh, Arjun Erigaisi, and R Praggnanadhaa won their respective matches in the 11th and final round match. The women’s team beat Azerbaijan 3.5-0.5 to clinch the title. Indian men had earlier won two bronze — in 2014 and 2022 — in the tournament. Indian women had won a bronze in the 2022 edition in Chennai.
After clinching the victory, the entire Indian contingent posed with the tricolour. To make the moment more special, Gukesh and Tania Sachdev emerged from either sides and imitated Rohit Sharma and Lionel Messi’s iconic slow-walk celebration, which they did while collecting the T20 World Cup 2024 and FIFA World Cup 2022 trophies respectively.
Earlier this year, the same celebration was also imitated by India men’s cricket team captain Rohit Sharma during the victory celebration of T20 World Cup 2024.
Up against Slovenia, Gukesh was at his very best in the technical phase of the game as black against Vladimir Fedoseev. Though it was a laboured victory, the 18-year-old Grandmaster was spot on with his tremendous strategic display.
Erigaise also won with black on the third board against Jan Subeli out of a surprising Centre Counter defense game.
If this was not enough, Praggnanadhaa struck form and scored a crushing victory over Anton Demchenko, as India secured 3-0 triumph over Slovenia with one game still remaining.
The Indian men ended up with a remarkable 21 points out of a possible 22. They conceded just a lone 2-2 draw to Uzbekistan while beating the rest of the opponents.
The Indian women then gave a rare double gold for the country as they scored 3.5-0.5 victory against Azerbaijan.
