After a breakout showing at the 2022 Chess Olympiad, Dommaraju Gukesh took things a step further this year in Budapest as he helped lead his nation to first place while also securing the individual gold. With the Indian women’s team also winning their competition, this marked an unprecedented national double.
Eight wins and two draws against the world’s elite: not a bad way to etch yourself into the chess record books at the tender age of eighteen. In 2022, Gukesh played on the first board of India’s second team (as the host nation has the opportunity to field three squads instead of one), ending the tournament with a 2867 tournament performance rating.
This time, he’s been in even better form, breaching the near-impossible 3000 TPR barrier at the 2024 Chess Olympiad with a 9/10 score, dropping only two half points against Hungary’s Richárd Rapport and Uzbekistan’s Nodirbek Abdusattorov. His victories over Wei Yi and Fabiano Caruana played a huge part in the eventual tournament result. With a whopping 30 points gained, and a display of great relentlessness, he now has to be seen as the runaway favorite for the upcoming world championship match against Ding Liren.
India won this year’s open competition at a canter, leading throughout and only drawing one match against Uzbekistan, winning the Olympiad with a whole round to spare. Things were somewhat tighter in the women’s event, where the Indian and Kazakh teams entered the final round on an equal score, but the former had a head-to-head advantage. Ultimately, no tiebreakers were needed as India handily defeated Azerbaijan with a 3.5-0.5 score as Kazakhstan drew 2-2 with the United States to take second place.
With this result, Gukesh has posted the second-highest tournament performance ever to be recorded at an elite event, with a TPR of 3056 still somewhat behind Caruana’s 8.5/10 at the 2014 Sinquefield Cup. The world championship challenger will now jump to 2794 Elo in the classical live ratings list—though, incredibly enough, his compatriot Arjun Erigaisi is nevertheless ahead of him with 2797 after a very impressive Olympiad of this own, making them third and fifth in the world rankings, respectively.
