2008 Chess Olympiad In Dresden

The colossal chess extravaganza that is the Chess Olympiad rolls into Dresden, Germany this week.  This biennial event pits national teams from around the world against one another in an 11-round swiss competition to find the strongest chess country in the world!

This will be the 38th Olympiad and 154 countries are expected to take part in the open event and 116 countries in the women's event, making it the largest chess olympiad ever and one of the biggest international competitions in ANY sport!

The defending champions from 2 years ago in Turin are the powerful Armenian team, led by Lev Aronian.  The silver medallists, China will be aiming to go one better this time with FIDE Grand Prix leader Wang Yue on their top board.  Bronze medallists, the USA, will be hoping that their team of Gata Kamsky, Hikaru Nakamura, Alexander Onischuk, Yuri Shulman and Varuzhan Akobian can do even better this time!

They will all face stiff competition for the medals from top seeds Russia, represented by Vladimir Kramnik, Alexander Morozevich, Peter Svidler, Alexander Grischuk and Dmitry Jakovenko.

The competition runs from 13-25 November and the official website is here.  Look out for updates at Chess.com!