Costa Rica had outstanding participation in the 2022 Chess Olympiad that took place in Chennai, India, where the Women’s National Team of our country ranked 57th in the world.
Of eleven games, the Costa Ricans won six and lost five times. In this way, they were placed as the best team in the isthmus and the tenth best in America. The members of the team are Sofía Mayorga, 12 years old, Kristel Díaz, 17 years old, and María Rodríguez, María Ramírez and Tania Hernández. For its part, the Men’s National Team, made up of Mauricio Arias Santana, David Cabezas, Gabriel Chaves, Eugenio Chinchilla and Leonardo Valdés, ranked 79th.
It should be noted that the national representation faced a series of obstacles in the tournament due to the physical impairment of some of its members, whether due to illness or accident, such as the one faced by Leonardo Valdés, board 1 of our country, who was forced return to Costa Rica ahead of time.
The great champions were from Uzbekistan both in the women’s branch and in the men’s. A total of 185 nations participated in this event that brings together the best global talent.
Last-minute changes in the host nation
The event, which was scheduled to take place in Moscow in 2020 and then postponed to 2021, and later to July 2022 due to the coronavirus pandemic, underwent a change of venue after the sanctions of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for the Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (last February);
The International Chess Federation accepted the proposal from India, one of its 199 affiliated nations, and in just over four months all the logistics were set up to carry out the test that brought together more than 3,000 athletes from the five continents and had a organization cost of $10 million.
