India finished 4th at World team championship, China wins Gold

FIDE World Team championship ‘2022 was held at Jerusalem, Israel from 18 to 26 November. Indian team comprised of Vidit, Nihal, SL Narayanan, Sethuraman, Sasikiran and Abhijeet Gupta.

India had a decent performance at the event considering the absence of top players like Arjun, Gukesh, Harikrishna. India managed to stun Azerbaijan in the group stages and defeated France in the quarter-finals to advance to the semis. In the quarters, India went on to play the tie-breaks with the French team. In the blitz tie-breaks, it was the Indian prodigy Nihal Sarin who scored the important win and guaranteed India the spot in top 4.

In the semi-finals, India lost against the young Uzbekistan team (also the Gold medal winners at Chess Olympiad ‘2022) and Spain lost to China. For the bronze medal match, India drew both small final duels against Spain 2-2. Spain outplayed the Indian team in the blitz tie-breaks with a score of 3-1.

In the finals, China defeated Uzbekistan and becoming the world champions. China defeated Uzbekistan 2.5-1.5 in both duels. They won the Gold medal by remaining undefeated throughout the tournament and without needing to play tie-breaks in the knockout stage. Uzbekistan had to settle for Silver. China had only one player – Lu Shanglei, from their top ten of the country.
For India, the standout performer was GM SL Narayanan with an Elo of 2716 and won individual bronze medal on Board 3. India missed a medal and finished fourth for the third consecutive time.

Image Credits : Maria Emelianova | FIDE 

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