Nation
A crushing positional victory without giving any chance to a strong opponent from the top-seeded US team and with it, waltzing past the 2700 Elo mark. That’s how the last Chess Olympiad, held in Tamil Nadu’s Mamallapuram in 2022, ended for Warangal lad Arjun Erigaisi. While Arjun bagged an individual silver medal on board 3, his India A team finished fourth, narrowly missing out on a medal. A couple of years older and a much improved chess player now, Arjun — currently the world No 4 and India's No 1 chess player ahead of Gukesh, R Praggnanandhaa and Viswanathan Anand — hopes to do even better in the Budapest Chess Olympiad that begins on Tuesday.