9/5/2020 – Alexei Shirov has been proclaimed the winner of the Gazprom Brilliancy Prize, a special trophy awarded by the General Partner of the Online Chess Olympiad. The game that earned Shirov this prize was his victory with the black pieces against Danyyil Dvirnyy, in which the Spaniard got to show a novelty in the Slav Defence and sacrificed his queen while attacking on the queenside. | Photo: FIDE

8/31/2020 – The 2020 FIDE Online Olympiad came to an end on Sunday, with an internet outage prompting FIDE to declare finalists Russia and India as joint winners. The match had started with a tie in the first six-game mini-match. In the second encounter of the day, however, Nihal Sarin and Divya Deshmukh disconnected towards the end of their games and lost on time. First, the Russians were declared champions, but after India’s appeal, on the grounds that their players lost connection as a consequence of a massive internet outage, FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich decided to grant gold medals to both teams.

8/30/2020 – India and Russia defeated Poland and the United States respectively to reach the final of the 2020 FIDE Online Olympiad. After losing the first mini-match, India came back with a convincing win in the second. In the Armageddon decider, Humpy Koneru comfortably defeated Monika Socko to give her team overall victory. Meanwhile, the Russians defeated USA in the first mini-match and drew the second encounter to advance to the final. | Pictured: Humpy Koneru and Alexandra Kosteniuk | Photos: Austin Fuller / Russian Chess Federation

8/28/2020 – Eight teams are left standing in the FIDE Online Olympiad, with the quarterfinals, semifinals and final scheduled to take place between Friday and Sunday. In the preliminary knockout to decide four of the eight spots in the quarterfinals, Armenia, Poland, Hungary and Ukraine knocked out Greece, Bulgaria, Germany and China respectively. Two matches went to Armageddon. | Pictured: Members of the Hungarian team at the 2018 Batumi Chess Olympiad | Photo: David Llada

8/24/2020 – The Top Division section of the FIDE Online Olympiad was played from Friday to Sunday this week. Three teams from each pool qualified either to the quarterfinals directly or to the preliminary stage. India, Azerbaijan, Russia and the United States are already in the quarterfinals while eight teams will fight for the remaining four spots in the first knockout stage of the playoffs. | Photos: Niki Riga / John Saunders

8/17/2020 – The FIDE Online Olympiad is taking place from July 25 to August 30. All the 163 registered teams were divided into 5 divisions ranked from “Base Division” to “Top Division”. The Top Division kicks off on Friday, with 25 seeded teams, including Russia, China, United States, etcetera, joined by the top three finishers of each pool (A to E) from Division 2.