The Indian women's chess team begins their gold medal defence at the FIDE Women's Olympiad in Samarkand on Wednesday, and this time around they are even bigger favourites to win the title.
There are two changes to India's victorious squad from Budapest 2024, with Koneru Humpy replacing Harika Dronavalli and Savitha Shri Baskar replacing Tania Sachdev. World Championship challenger R Vaishali, World Cup winner Divya Deshmukh and Vantika Agrawal are the returning members.
In the last edition, India edged out Kazakhstan by just a point. It was a victory scripted on the lower boards, with Divya and Vantika taking home individual gold medals from boards 3 and 4. It is likely that Divya and Vantika will continue to occupy those boards, with Humpy and Vaishali on the top two, but we will not know the decision made by captain Swayams Mishra until the very last minute.
Mishra was part of the team at the last Olympiad as well, working under captain Abhijeet Kunte, and has now taken the step up to become captain. He has grandmasters Arjun Kalyan and Diptayan Ghosh working with him, as coaches/seconds for the team.
If Budapest was about overcoming that last barrier and winning the title, the challenge for India in Samarkand will be to deal with the tag of favourites.
Humpy had no qualms in saying that India are the best team in the competition; they're seeded number one for a reason. "It's a really strong team," Humpy told ESPN India. "Everyone is talented in their own way, definitely the best team, and we are also placed number one in the rankings right now."
She picked Georgia, USA, and China as the India's toughest competition, but was very clear that it would be a setback if India didn't win gold. She was also wary of the pressure that comes with being the favourites. "We are the best team, but we should start the tournament without thinking about all these medals and what other people will think," she said.
At the Olympiad, a major spotlight will be on two young Indians who have won the biggest titles in chess in the recent past. Vaishali won the Candidates tournament earlier this year as an underdog, producing a sensational performance to make the World Championship final match with Ju Wenjun. Similarly, Divya was not favourite at last year's World Cup either, but she stood out in winning the clutch moments.
The difference now is that Divya and Vaishali are expected to win, India are expected to win. These players are battle-hardened, they've competed with the elite of women's chess for the last few years now, and have got what it takes to defend their title.
Harika is obviously a miss from this squad. She said in an interview with Chessbase India that her decision was based purely on wanting to ensure a younger player - in this case Savitha Shri - gets the opportunity to play at the Olympiad. She had played for nearly two decades and won it in Budapest, it felt like closure for her, she had said in that interview.
One potential challenge that can come up will be for Humpy and Divya to go from the rapid format at the Global Chess League to classical at the Olympiad, with just three days between the two tournaments. But that is the reality of chess right now, you need to be prepared to switch between formats on a whim, and both experienced enough to be able to do that.
The seedings say that if India play to their potential, they should win the title again. The mix of youth and experience and their track record also suggests the same. But as Humpy says, none of that counts if they're not able to produce the necessary results when the lights are brightest.
