Chess Olympiad 2024: Gukesh, Divya star as India continue domination in 2nd Round

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India continued their overwhelming dominance in the Chess Olympiad 2024 on Thursday (September 12), registering terrific wins across both formats of the 2nd Round of the tournament.

After a scintillating outing in the first, team India rallied with victories over Iceland and Czech Republic to further enhance their progression.

India Chess Olympiad 2024 Round 2 Scoreline

The Indian men's team, seeded second, dominated Iceland with a 4-0 win. Meanwhile, the top-seeded women's team triumphed over the Czech Republic with a score of 3.5-0.5.

Men's Team

India 4-0 Iceland

Women's Team

India 3.5-0.5 Czech Republic

India Men's Team blank Iceland

D. Gukesh, a World championship challenger and standout performer at the Chennai Olympiad two years ago, played his first game of this tournament. The 18-year-old from Chennai defeated Vignir Stefansson to start his campaign successfully.

Arjun Erigaisi set the tone by defeating Hannes Stefansson on the second board. Vidit Gujrathi followed suit by beating Hilmir Heimisson on the third board. Pendyala Harikrishna then won his long game against Helgi Gretarsson. With the win, team India's men's team have now won all of their first eight boards.

India Women's Team secure comfortable Win

It was not a clean slate for the women's team, but they too notched up a comfortable victory over Czech Republic.

Harika Dronavalli started with a win over Julia Movsesian on the top board in her first game of the tournament. Divya Deshmukh and Vantika Agrawal registered wins over Natalie Kanakova and Tereza Rodshtein respectively. Tania Sachdev was held to a draw by Martina Korenova, which contributed to India's 3.5-0.5 scoreline.

India 1st Round Results

• The Indian men's team won 4-0 in the first round against Morocco.
• The Indian women's team secured a 3.5-0.5 victory over Jamaica in the first round.