The 31st

Chess Olympiad The Chess Olympiad is a biennial chess tournament in which teams representing nations of the world compete. FIDE organises the tournament and selects the host nation. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, FIDE held an Online Chess Olympiad in FIDE Onli ...

(, ''31-ya Shakhmatnaya olimpiada''), organized by

FIDE The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( , ), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national chess federations and acts as the Spor ...

and comprising an openAlthough commonly referred to as the ''men's division'', this section is open to both

male Male (Planet symbols, symbol: ♂) is the sex of an organism that produces the gamete (sex cell) known as sperm, which fuses with the larger female gamete, or Egg cell, ovum, in the process of fertilisation. A male organism cannot sexual repro ...

and

female An organism's sex is female ( symbol: ♀) if it produces the ovum (egg cell), the type of gamete (sex cell) that fuses with the male gamete (sperm cell) during sexual reproduction. A female has larger gametes than a male. Females and ...

players. and a women's tournament, took place between November 30 and December 17, 1994, in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. Both tournament sections were officiated by

international arbiter In chess tournaments, an arbiter is an official who oversees matches and ensures that the rules of chess are followed. International Arbiter ''International Arbiter'' is a title awarded by FIDE to individuals deemed capable of acting as arbiter ...

Yuri Averbakh Yuri Lvovich Averbakh (; 8 February 1922 – 7 May 2022) was a Russian chess grandmaster and author. He was chairman of the USSR Chess Federation from 1973 to 1978. Averbakh was the first centenarian FIDE Grandmaster. Despite his eyesight and ...

of Russia. The record number of nations once again counted some old faces playing under new flags. Yugoslavia was back, but now represented by the federation of Serbia-Montenegro. Another former Yugoslav republic, Macedonia, also made its debut, as did the Czech Republic and Slovakia who competed individually for the first time. Finally, the

International Braille Chess Association The International Braille Chess Association (IBCA) is an organization for blind and visually impaired chess players. The IBCA is a FIDE-affiliated chess organization as well as a part of the International Blind Sports Federation. The Internation ...

entered two truly international teams. The Russian team retained their title, captained by PCA world champion Kasparov. Due to a dispute with the national federation,

champion

Anatoly Karpov Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov (, ; born May 23, 1951) is a Russian and former Soviet Grandmaster (chess), chess grandmaster, former World Chess Championship, World Chess Champion, ⁣and politician. He was the 12th World Chess Champion from 1975 ...

was not present. A strong performance from Bosnia-Herzegovina, led by Nikolić, earned them the silver, while the Russian "B" team of juniors, somewhat surprisingly, took the bronze—the first and only time that the same nation has occupied more than one medal rank.

Open event

The open division was contested by 124 teams representing 122 nations plus Russia "B" and the IBCA. The

time control A time control is a mechanism in the tournament play of almost all two-player board games so that each round of the match can finish in a timely way and the tournament can proceed. For turn-based games such as chess, shogi or go, time cont ...

for each game permitted each player 2 hours to make the first 40 of his or her moves, then an additional 1-hour to make the next 20 moves. In the event of a draw, the tie-break was decided by 1. The

Buchholz system The Buchholz system (also spelled Buchholtz) is a ranking or scoring system developed by Bruno Buchholz (died 1958) in 1932, for Swiss system tournaments. It was originally developed as an auxiliary scoring method, but more recently it has been u ...

; and 2. Match points. : :

Individual medals

Performance rating The PR (performance rating, P-rating, or Pentium rating) system was a figure of merit developed by AMD, Cyrix, IBM Microelectronics and SGS-Thomson in the mid-1990s as a method of comparing their x86 processors to those of rival Intel. The idea ...

Veselin Topalov Veselin Aleksandrov Topalov (pronounced ; ; born 15 March 1975) is a Bulgarian Grandmaster (chess), chess grandmaster and former FIDE World Chess Championship, World Chess Champion. Topalov became FIDE World Chess Champion by winning the FIDE ...

2781 * Board 1:

Daniel Hugo Cámpora Daniel commonly refers to: * Daniel (given name), a masculine given name and a surname * List of people named Daniel * List of people with surname Daniel * Daniel (biblical figure) * Book of Daniel, a biblical apocalypse, "an account of the activi ...

7½ / 9 = 83.3% * Board 2:

Carlos Dávila Carlos Gregorio Dávila Espinoza (September 15, 1887 – October 19, 1955), was a Chilean political figure, journalist, chairman of the Government Junta of Chile in 1932, and secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS) from 1 ...

11 / 14 = 78.6% * Board 3: Ennio Arlandi 7½ / 9 = 83.3% * Board 4:

Yasser Seirawan Yasser Seirawan (; born March 24, 1960) is a Syrian-born American chess grandmaster and four-time United States Chess Championship, United States champion. He won the World Junior Chess Championship in 1979. Seirawan is also a published chess au ...

8½ / 10 = 85.0% * 1st reserve: Leighton Williams 6 / 7 = 85.7% * 2nd reserve: Brian Kelly 5½ / 7 = 78.6%

Women's event

The women's division was contested by 81 teams representing 79 nations plus Russia "B" and the IBCA. The

for each game permitted each player 2 hours to make the first 40 of his or her moves, then an additional 1-hour to make the next 20 moves. In the event of a draw, the tie-break was decided by 1. The

; and 2. Match points. The Georgian team, led by former world champion Chiburdanidze, retained their title. Hungary returned to the medal ranks due to the return of Zsuzsa and Zsófia Polgár. Meanwhile, little sister Judit played first board for the Hungarian team in the open event - the first woman to do so. China, captained by reigning world champion Xie Jun, took the bronze. : :

Individual medals

Zsófia Polgár Sofia Polgar (, , ; born November 2, 1974) is a Hungarian and Israeli chess player, teacher, and artist. She holds the FIDE titles of International Master (IM) and Woman Grandmaster (WGM). A former chess prodigy, she is the middle sister of two ...

2625 * Board 1:

Lubov Zsiltzova-Lisenko Lubov Zsiltzova-Lisenko (; born 20 October 1956) is a Ukrainian chess player who holds the title of FIDE title of Woman International Master (WIM, 1996). She won the Ukrainian Women's Chess Championship in 1978 and is a two-time Women's Chess O ...

( IBCA) 10½ / 13 = 80.8% * Board 2:

12½ / 14 = 89.3% * Board 3:

Amelia Hernández Amelia Ignacia Hernández Bonilla (born June 7, 1971), is a Venezuelan chess Women FIDE Master (WFM) (1988), five-times Venezuelan Women's Chess Championships winner (1985, 1986, 1992, 1994, 2018), Women's Chess Olympiad individual gold medalis ...

8½ / 9 = 94.4% * Reserve: Elena Sedina 10½ / 12 = 87.5%

References

31st Chess Olympiad: Moscow 1994
OlimpBase {{Chess Olympiads Chess Olympiads Women's Chess Olympiads Olympiad 1994 Chess Olympiad 1994 1994 in chess 1994 in Russian sport 1994 in Moscow November 1994 sports events in Europe December 1994 sports events in Europe November 1994 in Russia December 1994 in Russia