Chess: Uzbekistan win Olympiad while David Howell takes performance gold

The premier team competition in chess, the 180-nation Chennai Olympiad, ended on Tuesday with a shock result. Uzbekistan, average age 20 and seeded only 14th, edged to gold ahead of the three-time winners Armenia and India’s teenagers, while the top seeded United States finished out of the medals.

India’s Gukesh D, 16, and the Uzbek Nodirbek Abdusattorov, 17, stood out as fast rising talents destined for the world top. The pair took gold and silver for the first board, leaving the world champion, Magnus Carlsen, with the bronze. Carlsen scored an unbeaten 7.5/9 but still dropped rating points, as he has done in every team appearance for Norway since 2007.

Silver medallists Armenia are the great chess team specialists, already winners of three Olympiad golds. Their success was notable after what could have been two crippling setbacks. Their longtime star Levon Aronian transferred to the US, while official support in Yerevan has sharply diminished.

Uzbekistan already has a $4m annual budget for chess and this will increase in 2026 when Tashkent plays host to the Olympiad, following Budapest 2024.

Its teenage stars were likely inspired in their early years by Rustam Kasimdzhanov’s victory in the 2004 Fide world championship. The loser on tie-break then was England’s Michael Adams – if he had won there were plans for a match with Garry Kasparov. A historic missed chance for English chess, perhaps.

England’s David Howell won gold on board three with 7.5/8 and a performance rating of 2898, the highest of the entire Olympiad, but his team failed at the final hurdle, losing 1.5-2.5 to outsiders Moldova in Tuesday’s 11th and last round and ending up 14th when a win would have placed them in the top six.

Howell, from Seaford in