won gold for Serbia in a
Chess.com competition at the
2023 Olympic Esports Week. The first known attempt to include chess in the Olympic Games were made by the
French Chess Federation (FFE) in 1924. While the organisers of the Summer Olympics defined chess as a sport, steps to include chess in the
1924 Summer Olympics in Paris failed due to "inflexible regulations". At the time, only
amateur athletes were allowed to participate in the Olympics; however, the absence of an international chess federation led to complications in distinguishing between amateur and professional players. While chess was excluded from the 1924 Olympics, the FFE still organized a parallel event, the
1st unofficial Chess Olympiad, known unofficially as the "Chess Olympic Games", consisting of the World Amateur Championship. The
International Chess Federation (FIDE) was founded during this event. Among its stated goals were the admission of chess to the
1928 Summer Olympics and the definition of amateurism. The second World Amateur Championship was held alongside the
2nd Chess Olympiad, coinciding with the 1928 Olympics; however, it was decided here to not discriminate between amateur and professional players, and
Chess Olympiads since 1927 have been team events open to amateurs and professionals. A bid for chess to feature at the
1940 Summer Olympics in Tokyo was rejected by the
International Olympic Committee (IOC) before the Games were cancelled due to the outbreak of
World War II. FIDE was recognized by the IOC in 1999, and chess officials have since lobbied for the game to be featured at the Olympics. After 1999, FIDE began implementing mandatory
doping tests at competitions because the IOC requires all members to be
World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) signatories. Chess debuted as an
exhibition sport at the
2000 Summer Olympics in
Sydney. The IOC supervised two games between
Viswanathan Anand of India and
Alexei Shirov of Spain, which took place in the Sydney
Olympic Village. The two matches were held in a
fast chess format on 24 September 2000, and both ended in
draws. In 2015, FIDE president
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov suggested the possibility of chess using pieces made of ice in order to feature at the
Winter Olympic Games. At the
2023 Olympic Esports Week, an
online chess competition was held via
Chess.com. The event featured nine
grandmasters and one International Master:
Alexey Sarana,
Maksim Chigaev,
Nguyễn Ngọc Trường Sơn,
Aleksandr Rakhmanov,
Oleksandr Bortnyk,
Samvel Ter-Sahakyan,
Bassem Amin,
Tin Jingyao,
Kevin Goh, and
Irene Kharisma Sukandar. Alexey Sarana won gold for Serbia while Maksim Chigaev and Nguyễn Ngọc Trường Sơn won silver and bronze for the
Individual Neutral Athletes and for Vietnam, respectively.
Arkady Dvorkovich, the current FIDE president, has stated that he hopes for chess to be featured as an exhibition sport at the
2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. == See also ==