Next Chess Olympiad In 2022; Budapest Wins Bid For 2024

After being postponed a year because of the pandemic, the 2020 Chess Olympiad has now been canceled. The next Olympiad will be held in 2022 in Moscow, and two years later Budapest will be the host city.

The 2020 Olympiad was supposed to be held in Moscow in the summer, but it became one of the many top events that had to be postponed to 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile, following the political turmoil in Belarus, FIDE reopened the bid for the 2022 Olympiad that was planned to be held in the Belarusian capital Minsk.

After failing to find an alternative organizer for the 2022 Olympiad, which also involves the 2021 FIDE World Cup and the new FIDE Women's World Cup, the International Chess Federation has decided to simply move the 2021 Olympiad to 2022. FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich explained it as follows:

"Given that the Republic of Belarus and its government have decided that they cannot hold the Olympiad, we have tried to find a solution, another host for the 2022 Olympiad and the World Cups. But we couldn't find an alternative. If you add to the picture the pandemic, we have been left with no other choice than to have just one Olympiad during this period. We have received a kind proposal from the Russian government to host the two World Cups simultaneously next year, 2021, and to have the Olympiad in Russia in 2022."

The FIDE president clarified that, as long as the circumstances allow, Khanty-Mansiysk will still host the FIDE Olympiad for People with Disabilities and the FIDE Congress during the summer next year.

2024 Olympiad

The 2024 Chess Olympiad will be held in Budapest. The only bid, which was from Hungary, was approved last week by the FIDE General Assembly.

The tournament is scheduled to run September 10-23, 2024 at the renovated Hungexpo Exhibition and Conference Centre with a total budget of 16.6 million euros. Political authorities, chess legends, and prominent members of the Hungarian Olympic movement and the sports administration have expressed their unconditional support to the event.

The Hungexpo official presentation video.

It will be the first official Olympiad held in Hungary, a country with a strong chess tradition. In 1926, the second of two "unofficial" Olympiads was held in Budapest and won by Hungary. The same team also took the gold medals in the first two official editions in 1927 and 1928.

"For us, Hungarians chess is not only a game, it’s a tradition," said GM Gabor Papp, team captain for Hungary. "We have a lot of elite players and great chess personalities in the history of chess, and I’m not speaking only about the past couple of decades when GM Peter Leko played the world championship match and GM Judit Polgar was considered to be the greatest female player. In 1978 Hungary won a Chess Olympiad,  the winning team contained names like Lajos Portisch. We could go back to the 1930s when Geza Maroczy was one of the greatest players. These names are just examples, the list is far from being full.

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The Budapest organizers intend to make the 46th edition an innovative Olympiad, with new technologies such as a 5G high-speed wireless network, a real-time visual broadcast, and special tools and technologies such as holograms and newly invented "sensitive" chess boards for the visually impaired.

It will also be a "green" Olympiad, with the possibility of transfers between the venues and the hotels with bicycles and electric vehicles and by avoiding paper and plastic. Furthermore, the organizers will strive for more balanced numbers of men and women participants. The full presentation can be found here in PDF.

See also:

• Belarus Loses 2022 Chess Olympiad