India And Russia Declared Co-Champions Of First-Ever FIDE Online Chess Olympiad 

2020 FIDE Chess Olympiad: The global chess body investigated the issue for over an hour and considering that three games were affected due to server problems, they decided to declare India and Russia as joint winners.

Photo: Twitter

India and Russia were named the joint-winners of the 2020 FIDE Chess Olympiad in a dramatic finish on Sunday after global internet outage affected the final. India had filed an official appeal after Nihal Sarian and Divya Deshmukh lost internet connection to their games in the second round and forfeited on time. FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich decided to award gold medals to both the teams. Before winning the gold medal today, India's previous best finish was winning a Gold medal in the year 2014. "FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich made a decision to give gold medals of FIDE Online #ChessOlympiad to both teams - India and Russia," FIDE tweeted. Due to the internet malfunctioning, India provisionally lost 1.5-4.5 to Russia in the second round and ultimately the entire match. The formal appeal made by the Indian team against server issue was considered by the FIDE. The global chess body investigated the issue for over an hour and considering that three games were affected due to server problems, they decided to declare India and Russia as joint winners. "We just told FIDE that three of our players - K. Humpy, Nihal Sarin and Divya Deshmukh were logged out due to server crash during the second match of the final," non-playing Captain Srinath Narayanan told IANS. "We had asked for a fair solution - a replay of three games," he added. Soon after India made the appeal, FIDE had tweeted: ""In the second round of #ChessOlympiad final match India vs Russia, two Indian players Nihal Sarin and Divya Deshmukh lost connection to their games and forfeited on time. India filed an official appeal, the issue is now being investigated."

In the second round of #ChessOlympiad final match India vs Russia, two Indian players Nihal Sarin and Divya Deshmukh lost connection to their games and forfeited on time. India filed an official appeal, the issue is now being investigated.

— International Chess Federation (@FIDE_chess) August 30, 2020

Announcing his decision Dvorkovich in a statement said: "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.

"The Appeals Committee has examined all the evidence provided by Chess.com, as well as information gathered from other sources about this internet outage. After being informed of their considerations and in absence of an unanimous decision, and taken into account these unprecedented circumstances, as FIDE President I made the decision to award Gold Medals to both teams," he said.