Madaminov's Unbeaten 5.5/7 Seals Uzbekistan's Second Gold

Uzbekistan won the Open section of the 2026 Chess Olympiad on home soil in Samarkand, beating Ukraine 2.5-1.5 in the final round to claim the country’s second Olympiad title after Chennai 2022. Four of the five players from that 2022 squad repeated the feat in Samarkand, a rare piece of continuity in an event where rosters usually turn over heavily between cycles.

The gold didn’t need a full match win. A 2-2 draw would probably have been enough given the tiebreak situation, but Uzbekistan got more than that anyway.

Reserve board Mukhiddin Madaminov supplied the decisive point on board four, closing the tournament with an unbeaten 5.5/7 that Chess.com described as coming in a sharp clash with GM Roman Dehtiarov. For a reserve-board player to end up as the hero of a title-clinching match is exactly the kind of depth national federations spend years trying to build.

The other three boards on the top match all drew. Nodirbek Abdusattorov pressed hard in a bishop ending with an extra pawn against Ukraine but let the win slip at the very end, a small blemish on an otherwise outstanding week. He still walked away with the individual gold medal on board one, posting a 2869 performance rating for the event.

India claimed the silver medal after a 2-2 draw with Hungary. Arjun Erigaisi beat Peter Leko with Black on board two, but the board-four result stood out: Gleb Dudin defeated World Champion Gukesh D, the upset result of the whole match. Dudin’s win earned him individual gold on first reserve board, while Gukesh still took silver on board four for his overall performance.

Germany took bronze, beating the Netherlands 2.5-1.5 behind Matthias Bluebaum’s decisive win over Jorden van Foreest on board two. Frederik Svane added individual gold on board three with a 2796 performance.

All three medal-winning teams had occupied the top boards for most of the eleven rounds, which made the final placings feel less like a late twist and more like the standings simply catching up to who’d actually been playing best throughout.

The United States, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Hungary shared fourth through seventh, while China slipped to eighth despite spending much of the event among the leaders. Wei Yi still picked up individual gold on board two.

In the Women’s section, China ran away with gold, beating Vietnam 3-1 in the final round. Zhu Jiner led the way with a win over Le Thao Nguyen Pham on board one, finishing unbeaten at 7/9 and taking individual gold on that board.

China’s other win came on board three, where 16-year-old Lu Miaoyi beat Phuong Hanh Luong to close her own Olympiad unbeaten at an eye-catching 9.5/11, also good for individual gold.

That China could produce this margin without its highest-rated stars in the lineup says a good deal about the depth behind Hou Yifan, Ju Wenjun, Lei Tingjie and Tan Zhongyi.

Kazakhstan took Women’s silver after drawing 2-2 with Poland, with Aleksandra Maltsevskaya beating Alua Nurman on board two before Elnaz Kaliakhmet leveled the match with a win over Alicja Sliwicka on board four, a result that also earned Kaliakhmet individual gold on that board.

India, the United States, Poland, Armenia and Mongolia all finished level on match points, but India took bronze on tiebreak after drawing 2-2 with Georgia.

Alice Lee of the United States collected individual gold on board two with a 2572 performance, and India’s Shri B Savitha won board-five gold.

One of the sharpest individual games of the closing rounds came from that India-Georgia match. Humpy Koneru sacrificed a knight against Nana Dzagnidze with 19.Nf6+!, and after the forced 19…gxf6 followed up with 20.Qxh6, generating mating threats that left Dzagnidze scrambling to survive.

The closing ceremony also carried a symbolic changing of the guard. Newly elected FIDE President Timur Turlov, discussed in The Chess Herald’s earlier coverage of his election, made the ceremonial first move for Nodirbek Abdusattorov before sharing a handshake with Ukrainian legend Vasyl Ivanchuk, who was playing board two for Ukraine in the very match that decided the gold.

Open standings

#	Team	W–D–L	Match Points	Board Points
1	Uzbekistan	10–0–1	20	32.5
2	India	8–2–1	18	28.5
3	Germany	9–0–2	18	28.5
4	USA	8–1–2	17	29
5	Azerbaijan	7–3–1	17	28.5
6	Armenia	7–3–1	17	27
7	Hungary	7–3–1	17	24.5
8	China	7–2–2	16	28
9	France	6–4–1	16	28.5
10	Spain	8–0–3	16	28.5

Women standings

#	Team	W–D–L	Match Points	Board Points
1	China	9–2–0	20	33
2	Kazakhstan	7–4–0	18	29
3	India	7–3–1	17	31
4	USA	8–1–2	17	32.5
5	Poland	8–1–2	17	28.5
6	Armenia	8–1–2	17	28.5
7	Mongolia	8–1–2	17	27
8	Georgia	6–4–1	16	28.5
9	Vietnam	8–0–3	16	28.5
10	Slovenia	7–2–2	16	29.5