09/16/2026
46th FIDE Chess Olympiad
Sept 16-27, 2026
Samarkand, UZB
11-round, 4v4 national team tournaments in Open and Women's sections.
Canada has teams in both sections:
Open #41
Captain: Evgeny Bareev
1 GM Rodrigue-Lemieux, Shawn 2536
2 GM Atanasov, Anthony 2481
3 GM Preotu, Razvan 2475
4 IM Noritsyn, Nikolay 2444
5 IM Sai Krishna G V 2451
Women #38
Captain: Raja Panjwani
1 WGM Ouellet, Maili-Jade 2260
2 WIM Li, Yunshan 2228
3 WIM Demchenko, Svitlana 2166
4 WFM Golubeva, Oksana 2086
5 WFM Jiang, Hanxi (Hancy) 1908
Top-Ranked teams are:
Open: USA, India, Uzbekistan, China, Germany.
Women: India, Georgia, Kazakhstan, China, USA.
That China is ranked only 4th is strange, since the top four FIDE-rated women in the world are _all_ from China; but only #4 Zhu Jiner will play at the Olympiad, meaning China's women's team is missing the world's top three rated women: world #1 Hou Yifan, world #2 and current Women's World Champion Ju Wenjun, and world #3 Lei Tingjie, all MIA.
Several top players are not competing in the Open, including Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, and Alireza Firouzja.
No one from Putin's country is allowed to compete.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
LINKS
Live Games
games start 3pm local, 6am EST.
FIDE commentary (Svidler & Chirilla & interviews)
https://www.twitch.tv/fide_chess
lichess
https://lichess.org/@/lichess/blog/2026-samarkand-olympiad-preview/anaRyt7r
chess.com
https://www.chess.com/events/2026-fide-chess-olympiad-open/games
---------------------------------------------------------
Canadian Team pairings:
Women
https://s1.chess-results.com/tnr1469896.aspx?lan=1&art=20&fed=CAN&turdet=YES&flag=30&SNode=S0
Open
https://s3.chess-results.com/tnr1469895.aspx?lan=1&art=20&fed=CAN&turdet=YES&flag=30&SNode=S0
homepage
https://chessolympiad2026.fide.com/
photos
FIDE Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/fide_chess/
FIDE facebook
https://www.facebook.com/ChessFIDE/
Videos
Sagar Shah tours the venues
https://youtu.be/ikgXSGP8-OQ?si=FSZtxNiIXc_38Jco
