The gold medal for the 44th Chess Olympiad went to India and Russia. This happened because of an Internet glitch. The Olympiad happens every two years to find the best chess-playing nation in the world. This year it was online for the first time because of coronavirus. Some games in the final came to an end after two Indian players lost their Internet connection. Officials at the tournament said they had to award the gold medal to the two countries because it was fair. The Indian players lost time when their Internet connection failed.
This year's Chess Olympiad had teams from over 160 countries take part. The final was the second time teams had technical problems. A player from Armenia was disconnected during a quarter-final match. Officials rejected his appeal for more time so Armenia withdrew from the competition in protest. Officials said there were "unprecedented circumstances" in the final. They said a, "global Internet outage severely affected" two of the Indian players in the final. They added that the lost connection happened, "when the outcome of the match was still unclear".