After more than five weeks the FIDE On-line Olympiad ended in chaos when the Russia-India finals match was halted by an Internet disconnection.
The Russians led the match with one win and three draws. In the two remaining games, India had an easy win and a probable draw.
If the match were drawn, as seemed highly likely, the teams would have played a single Armageddon to decide the gold medals.
But the FIDE arbiters forfeited the two Indians on time because of the disconnect.
When this produced an international outcry, even from Russian GMs, FIDE president Arkady Dvorkovich awarded the gold medals to both teams.
Then he wrote the Kremlin to congratulate Russia for winning the gold medals. Russian federation president Andrei Filatov tweeted "We won the Olympiad, and the problem with the Internet is on the conscience of the Indian federation.
Disconnects plagued the Olympiad and there was little consistency in applying rules. In the semi-finals, Armenia was eliminated because one of their players had an Internet disconnection. FIDE said it was his fault. Armenia appealed and the appeal was rejected.
GM Levon Aronian echoed Orwell when he tweeted “some of us are less connected than the others.”
Time to return to postal chess with post cards? 
People don’t want to trust the postal service for an election, are you willing to trust it with something as important as a chess championship?
I trust the postal service for an election. I’ve voted by mail in every election for the past five years. The postal service, even with attempted gutting by some people, is still more dependable than many internet service providers. Ask the India team…
Yes. It’s fun to receive something in the mail other than bills and junk!
Instead of sending your ballot to some address within your state, wouldn’t the correct analogy for the Olympiad controversy be sending a letter to/from India? I haven’t received mail from India recently, but my mail from Europe arrived much more slowly since the pandemic began. I do not know if the root cause is the pandemic or the post office.
Michael Aigner