The old dream of Armenian chess players has come true: the men’s team of Armenia has won the gold medal at the 37th World Chess Olympiad in Turin, Italy.

Prior to the last two rounds there was no doubt that our chess players are the winners as they were ahead of the closest rivals – France and China – by 3.5 points. Draws in the last two rounds against France and Hungary secured the first place with 36 points leaving behind China with 34 and USA and Israel with 33.

The Armenian team won 10 games and drew 3 suffering no defeat in the Olympiad. After the 6th round our team was the sole front-runner ahead of such giants as Russia, China, Hungary, France, Ukraine, Holland, Israel and USA.

Individual performances of the Armenian team have been exciting to follow. Gabriel Sargsian has the best record on points (10) after 13 games and no defeat. Vladimir Hakobian playing on the second board gained 9 out of 12 games. Third comes Levon Aronian with 7 points out of 11 games. Karen Asrian gained 5 out of 10 games, Smbat Lputian and Artashes Minasian gained 2.5 points out of 3 games.

Gabriel Sargsian had the second best performance rating after Vladimir Kramnik of Russia.

In the women’s championship the national team of Ukraine conquered the gold medal. In the last round they agreed to a quick draw against the Armenian girls. The 24 points in the tournament placed Armenian girls 8th.