Indian chess grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa praised the country’s remarkable achievement at the Chess Olympiad 2024, where India won gold medals in both the men's and women's categories for the first time. He emphasized that this victory will help popularize chess even further.
On September 22, 2024, the Indian chess teams made history by clinching their first gold medals in Budapest, Hungary, defeating their opponents in the final matches.
Praggnanandhaa highlighted the significance of this accomplishment, noting that it marked the first instance of India winning gold in both categories simultaneously. He remarked, "Both the men's and women's teams won the gold medal. This is a very historic achievement, and there are very few teams who have won both medals at the same time. This is a very proud moment for all of us. I think this win will take chess to more people."
In the men’s final, the Indian team, consisting of Gukesh Dommaraju, Arjun Erigaisi, and Praggnanandhaa, secured victory against Slovakia by winning their individual matches. Simultaneously, the women's team, featuring Harika Dronavalli, R Vaishali, Divya Deshmukh, Vantika Agarwal, and Tania Sachdev, triumphed over Azerbaijan with a score of 3.5 to 0.5.
Reflecting on their previous performance at the last Olympiad in Chennai, where India narrowly missed the gold and settled for bronze, Praggnanandhaa mentioned, "This time, we were more experienced and managed to leverage that to secure gold. There wasn't any particular technique; we just played our best."
Men's team captain Srinath shared his thoughts on the journey, describing it as "smooth" and praising the team's consistent performance with 10 wins and one draw. He said, "India has won the gold medal at the Olympiad for the first time, and it’s a historic achievement. As captain, I can say that everything went smoothly from the start. It was a complete team effort."
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