Georgian women' team won bronze medal at Chess Olympiad which was held in the city of Russia, Khanty Mansiysk. Men's team took the 30th place. At last Olympiad Georgian women's team became champion and men's team shared V-XI places, so, Georgian chess players regressed at the mentioned Olympiad. Though, both teams started the tournament well.
Besides team bronze medal, Georgian women players won one silver and one bronze medals on individual boards. Salome Melia, current Georgian champion and debutante of Chess Olympiad, who played on the 3rd board won silver medal. Bela Khotenashvili won bronze medal.
After the end of Olympiad, "World Sport" contacted Gia Giorgadze, president of Georgian Chess Federation, who is in Khanty Mansiysk.
- How can you estimate playing of Georgian chess players at Olympiad 2010?
- In spite of that, Georgian women team won bronze medal, I am satisfied with their playing. Only Russian 1st and Chinese teams had better results than us. Russian 1st team won all matches. We beat Chinese team and if we had not lost against Serbia, we would have had a chance to take the 2nd place.
- Besides Russian 1st team and Serbia, we could not win over Ukraine and Poland and played draw...
- A big group was working on Russian 1st team. They were prepared well and deserved the first place. Our loss against Serbia was surprise for everyone. We could have won over Ukraine. As for draw with Poland - after beating Ukraine by China, we lost a chance to take the 2nd place. Draw was enough to win bronze medal and we did not take a risk.
- Georgian men's team started Olympiad well. They won 5 matches in a row and were leaders. We hoped that our team would have improved result (V-XI place) showed at Drezden Chess Olympiad 2008. Our team gained only 3 points in last 6 rounds and took the 30th place. What was the reason of this failure?
- Our men's team showed individually good result. It is worth mentioning, that if Levan Pantsulaia had won the last round, he would have won bronze medal on his board.
Another reason of our failure in the second half was that we played against stronger opponents. Current champion Armenia is left beyond prize places and took the 7th place.


Roland Labuchidze