The 46th FIDE Chess Olympiad will be held in Samarkand, Uzbekistan from September 12 to 26, 2026 — the biennial team championship that brings together more than 1,500 players from over 190 federations. Each participating country fields a four-board open team and a four-board women’s team, and the 11-round Swiss is played at classical time control.
Samarkand’s selection follows Uzbekistan’s gold-medal performance at the 44th Olympiad in Chennai in 2022, where the team led by Nodirbek Abdusattorov (board one) won their first-ever Olympiad title. The 45th edition was held in Budapest in 2024 and was won by India (open) and India (women) — the latter India’s first women’s Olympiad gold.
Defending Olympiad champions face strong fields: India (open and women, both gold in 2024), the United States, China, Norway (with Magnus Carlsen typically playing for the Norwegian team), Russia, Armenia, and host Uzbekistan. The mathematical favourite is usually one of India, United States, or China depending on who fields the strongest line-up.
The Olympiad combines elite-individual chess with national-team narrative in a way no other event does. A grandmaster who is the world number-fifteen plays board one for a smaller federation against a board-one grandmaster who is world number-five; upsets are common; team chemistry matters. Sponsorship is light and the prize fund is modest by elite standards, but the event’s prestige and audience are second only to the World Championship.
For the official Olympiad website, FIDE’s announcement page, and TWIC’s Olympiad coverage archive, see the right column.