Just around 20 years ago China was non-existant place in the chess planet, they barely had titled players and none of them was remotely near the chess Olympus, in those times Russia was still king of the Olympiads fighting hard against some powerful former URSS nations such as Ukraine and Armenia.
It took just 20 years for China to become a chess powerhouse whose strength is just starting to flourish, they have won the planetary chess contest in a convincingly and consistent manner. A young generation of players which are just leaving their teens with enough maturity to take for assault on the elite.
The average ELO of the chinese team isn't very impressive and didn't make them favorites but there is something special about these guys, i think chess is a very suitable activity for the chinese character, to become strong at chess you need (between other things) focus, hard work and determination. I would add that the chinese are strong team players, it has been noticed that whenever facing a string team they would reunite themselves and give practical recommendations about what repertoire to use.
The decisive match was against France which sent their best players, probably the strongest french team of all time where almost all players had more than 2700 Elo points and were direct rivals for the first place, the match ended in a draw, leaving China with the first option to become champíon.
Russia was favorite, but they dissapointed badly and got the third place almost by chance.
All in all, respect and congratulations for the chinese team, i include myself between the ones who think that the next prodigy of the game, the next Magnus Carlsen will be a chinese kid.
It took just 20 years for China to become a chess powerhouse whose strength is just starting to flourish, they have won the planetary chess contest in a convincingly and consistent manner. A young generation of players which are just leaving their teens with enough maturity to take for assault on the elite.
The average ELO of the chinese team isn't very impressive and didn't make them favorites but there is something special about these guys, i think chess is a very suitable activity for the chinese character, to become strong at chess you need (between other things) focus, hard work and determination. I would add that the chinese are strong team players, it has been noticed that whenever facing a string team they would reunite themselves and give practical recommendations about what repertoire to use.
The decisive match was against France which sent their best players, probably the strongest french team of all time where almost all players had more than 2700 Elo points and were direct rivals for the first place, the match ended in a draw, leaving China with the first option to become champíon.
Russia was favorite, but they dissapointed badly and got the third place almost by chance.
All in all, respect and congratulations for the chinese team, i include myself between the ones who think that the next prodigy of the game, the next Magnus Carlsen will be a chinese kid.
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