India and Russia declared joint winners after a controversial final in Online Chess Olympiad

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, an online version of the Chess Olympiad contest is being held for the first time this year.
Reportedly, India appealed after two of its players lost connection to their games and forfeited on time.

Arkady Dvorkovich, president of the International Chess Federation, said in a statement, "The Online Chess Olympiad has been impacted by a global internet outage, that severely affected several countries, including India. Two of the Indian players have been affected and lost connection, when the outcome of the match was still unclear."

A server outage resulted in India and Russia sharing the trophy in the FIDE online Chess Olympiad on Sunday. Nihal Sarin and Divya Deshmukh were initially deemed to have lost their matches on the basis of time running out after the internet connection faltered. Both Indians were holding good positions in their contests. However, a little while later, the International Chess Federation decreed that the two teams be declared joint winners.

Also read: Ten members of Chennai Super kings squad tested positive for COVID-19

The eventual decision came as a relief to the Indians, because when the server crashed and the screens went still, panic had set in amidst the contingent, scattered across different parts of the country. “I did not know what was happening. No one knew how to deal with the situation,” non-playing skipper Narayanan Srinath told official website chessbase.com in the post-match interview before the final verdict had been announced.

Teams from more than 160 countries have participated in this year's online event, which began in July.
But the final is not the first time the tournament has come under scrutiny.

The 44th Chess Olympiad was scheduled to take place in Russia this month but was postponed until next year because of the pandemic.

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