Going into the last round of the World Chess Olympiad, the chances of the US Team for any kind of medal were somewhere between slim and none, as they faced the world-class team of the Mighty Ukraine.
On every board, the USA team was outrated by an average of 60 rating points. This made the chances that the USA team might even be able to draw the match to be approximately nil.
Amazingly, the USA Team wiped out the Ukraine by 3 1/2 - 1/2, with Kamsky beating Ivanchuk on board one.
This will have to go down as one of the greatest upsets in Olympiad history, As a result, the US Team finished in third place and won the bronze medal, even though they had started the Olympiad ranked only tenth. Armenia won, with Israel finishing second.
Round 11 on 2008/11/25 at 10:00
Bo. 10 USA United States of America (USA) Rtg - 2 UKR Ukraine (UKR) Rtg 3½: ½
3.1 GM Kamsky Gata 2729 - GM Ivanchuk Vassily 2786 1 - 0
3.2 GM Nakamura Hikaru 2704 - GM Karjakin Sergey 2730 ½ - ½
3.3 GM Onischuk Alexander 2644 - GM Eljanov Pavel 2720 1 - 0
3.4 GM Shulman Yuri 2616 - GM Efimenko Zahar 2680 1 - 0
Not to be sneezed at was the result of the US Woman’s team, who was not given much of a chance as they started the event ranked only seventh. However, the US women beat Russia and drew with China to finish third in the Olympiad behind Georgia and the Ukraine.
This great result by the US Women was made possible because of Anna Zatonskih who won the silver medal with a score of 8-2 with a performance rating of 2571, more than one hundred points above her published rating of 2440 and especially because of Rusudan Goletiani who performed nearly two hundred points above her rating, scoring 9-2 with a performance of 2542, whereas her published rating is only 2359.
Among individual players, most notable was former Woman’s World Champion Maya Chiburdanidze, who returned to her prior form after years of mediocre results and scored 7 1/2 - 1 1/2, beating both Chinese prodigy Hou Yifan and The Real Woman’s World Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk to achieve a performance rating of 2715.
Even more spectacular was the result of beauty queen Martha Fierro of Ecuador who scored an amazing 7 1/2 - 1/2 to achieve a performance rating of 2613, one of the best results ever in history for a woman.
This was the second amazing result for Martha Fierro just within the last few weeks. Just before the Olympiad, she and her partner won the gold medal in mixed blitz doubles at the World Mind Sport Games in Beijing, China. Nobody would have imagined that a team from lowly Ecuador would win an event like that, but they did, IM Martha Fierro and GM Franco Matamoros achieved historic success by winning this event, defeating powerful teams from China, India and other countries.
Sam Sloan