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Our correspondent Anna Dergatscheva hails from Russia, lives in Germany and plays chess in the top German division.
The report and all pictures, unless otherwise stated, are by Anna Dergatscheva and were brought back by her from the Olympiad in Bled .
The 35th Chess Olympiad in Ble is now history. It ended in a victory for the Russian team, with silver going to Hungary and bronze to the team from Armenia. In the women's section China triumphed ahead of Russia and Poland.
The closing ceremony and prize-giving
The victorious Russian team
The Hungarians came in second.
Here's a little puzzle for you: who was the "senior" in the Hungarian team, the oldest player in the squad?
The answer is: Judit Polgar, if you can believe it!
The Armenians came in third
The gold-medalist Chinese women with Zhao Xue, Wang Pin, Xu Yuhua, Zhu Chen
The Russian women's team with Kosintseva, Matveeba, Kosteniuk, Kovalevskaya
Garry Kasparov with Sergey Shipov check out the progress of the Russian women
The hero of the Russian team was 16-year-old Tatjana Kosintseva, who scored a fantastic result of 11 points in 12 games. Tatjana quite an extraordinary in the way she keeps her cool. I never saw even the tiniest expression of emotion during a game. Even when she was a piece down she sat there in calm concentration, just as she did when she was a piece up. I believe this is a future world champion.
Miss Cool – Tatjana Kosintseva
The bronze medalists Poland, with Socko, Kadziolka, Dworakowska, Radziewicz
The bronze medal went to the ladies from Poland, who won their last match 3-0. It was the first time in many years that the Georgian team was not on the medal list. The experienced team, with ex world champion Maja Tschiburdanidze and the strong WGMs Nana Ioseliani, Ketevan Arachamia-Grant, Nino Khurtsidze and Nino Gurieli (team captain) were leading by a big margin after round ten, but apparently they were not able to stand up to the pressures of such a long tournament and the new FIDE time controls as well as their younger compatirots.
The Georgian team led by the legendary Maja Tschiburdanidze (left) [Photo
Pähtz]
Just before the end of the tournament a party was thrown for the players. Here you could see how players who had just finished a bitter fight over the board could turn into one big happy family. It was also the place to watch a world champion transform into what he really is: a nice 19-year-old lad who enjoys an evening in the disco.
FIDE world champion Ruslan Ponomariov at the party
Dijana Dengler and Suat Atalik
Nikoletta Lakos of the Hungarian women's team
Switzerland's Yannik Pelletier
And finally our roving correspondent, with a friend.
Linda Nangwale and Anna Dergachova
