Chess Olympiad 2022: Meet the Indian women who made chess history

In just half each day, the Indian ladies chess team went from the near-certainty of the gold medal in the Chess Olympiad to the dismay of a bronze.

These people still made background – as the first-ever Indian women’s team to win the medal at an Olympiad.

The Indians were no underdogs. Koneru Humpy, Harika Dronavalli, Tania Sachdev, R Vaishali and Bhakti Kulkarni – a delightful mix of long-serving mould-breakers and younger prodigies – were the top seeds within the women’s section. This helped that none Russia nor China participated in the Olympiad.

The Indians had been within touching range of gold for the most part of their campaign — and in sole lead heading into the last round – prior to an awry 1-3 loss to UNITED STATES. Tania and Bhakti bungled their reduce board games while Humpy and Vaishali held on to draws. Tania, unbeaten with 8 points from ten games until the final round, struggled in the future to terms having an inexplicably terrible final day. She lost to America’s Carissa Yip, and was evidently gutted.

“I think it’s really difficult right now to understand the gravity of successful the first medal for that Olympiad, ” Tania said soon after, eye downcast, fighting back emotions. “More than anything else I think it was about the way the tournament was progressing, we were leading. Wish now dealing with having lost out on gold rather than winning the bronze. ”

It must be an unique, confounding feeling. A historic first medal that furthermore serves as a memento of a missed opportunity. India did not eliminate their matches against the teams who completed ahead of them in the final standings — namely, Ukraine plus Georgia. It was one of the reasons why a precious metal seemed probable.

But for a brief while, even the bronze was in doubt. After the last round games finished on Tuesday — with the gold and silver within the women’s section likely to Ukraine and Georgia respectively – India’s medal fortunes put up in the balance. It took some manic tiebreak math to choose whether the bronze medal went to India or maybe the US. Numbers preferred Indians and the Americans had to make peace with a fourth place.

Humpy and Harika, the two Grandmasters in the Indian side, were theoretically the particular team’s highest ranked players. Harika well balanced her advanced phase of pregnancy with all the rigours of protracted classical games, plus played out seven draws in a line. She sat out there the last two games but showed up with the rest of the team in order to answer questions through the press about their own performance.

Many of these women have been quietly crushing stereotypes for a long time. Humpy got back right after motherhood to become entire world rapid champion a few years ago. Harika has pulled all stops to be there on her team – venturing with husband plus mother in tow line, keeping in mind her looming delivery date. Tania has successfully balanced her commentary performances with a playing profession. In this tournament she’s been a tenacious fighter too, milling out wins upon demand.

Last year, this Indian team : minus Humpy — won a first-ever World Teams honor, a silver. Their particular previous best outcome at an Olympiad has been fourth place at the 2012 Istanbul Olympiad. It took a decade after that for their 1st bronze medal in the future along.

However in a sport that suffers from a sizeable sex gap, both in involvement figures and actively playing strength, this bronze may well be a bugle call for a whole new generation associated with girls.