Man plans, God laughs. Fide, the international federation, organised an Online Olympiad, with 163 teams taking part. We got a global internet outage during the final. The disruption hit the Indian players at a critical stage, in the second of two matches against Russia. (The first was tied 3-3).
India were soon to be trailing 2.5-1.5, but had realistic hopes to even the score on the two remaining boards. But when those two players lost their connection to the website where the games were played, their time elapsed and they lost. The Indians lodged an appeal, but the appeals committee couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict. It fell to Fide president Arkady Dvorkovich to settle the matter. Dvorkovich is Russian, so an impartial ruling was impossible. He awarded gold medals to both India and Russia. An awkward compromise, but sound politics.
If the conclusion was unsatisfying, it wasn’t for lack of planning.
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