India and Russia both get gold medals at chess championship
India and Russia both get gold medals at chess championship after two Indian players lose their internet connection in final
- Nihal Sarin, 16, and Divya Deshmukh, 14, fell victim to ‘global internet outage’
- They were one of 160 countries competing in the Chess Olympiad held online
- They were forced to forfeit after loosing connection, but India appealed
Published: 16:19 EDT, 30 August 2020 | Updated: 17:12 EDT, 30 August 2020
Both India and Russia were awarded gold medals in a prestigious chess competition after two Indian players – aged just 14 and 16 – lost their internet connection in the final.
Nihal Sarin, 16, and Divya Deshmukh, 14, lost connection due to ‘a global internet outage’ in the last round of the Chess Olympiad.
The competition – in which contestants from 160 countries competed against each other – was held online this year due to coronavirus restrictions.
Both India and Russia were awarded gold medals in a prestigious chess competition after Nihal Sarin, 16, (left) and Divya Deshmukh, 14, (right) lost connection due to ‘a global internet outage’ in the last round of the Chess Olympiad
Divya was soaring ahead of Russian Polina Shuvalova, while it was a closer call between Nihal and his competition Andrey Esipenko when their internet connection dropped.
They were forced to forfeit after loosing connection to their online games, but India appealed, BBC News reports.
President of the International Chess Federation said in a statement: ‘The Online Chess Olympiad has been impacted by a global internet outage, that severely affected several countries, including India.
The Chess Olympiad – in which contestants from 160 countries competed against each other – was held online this year due to coronavirus restrictions (file image)
The Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi rushed to congratulate the pair on Twitter (pictured)
‘Two of the Indian players have been affected and lost connection, when the outcome of the match was still unclear.
The International Chess Federation’s appeals committee could not make a ‘unanimous decision’ so he gave the win to both countries.
The Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi rushed to congratulate the pair on Twitter.
He wrote: ‘Congratulations to our chess players for winning the FIDE Online Chess Olympiad. Their hard work and dedication are admirable. Their success will surely motivate other chess players. I would like to congratulate the Russian team as well.’
On Friday, Armenia said it too fell victim to internet outages after its players were disconnected in the quarter final and appealed.
But it was rejected, leading the country withdraw in protest.
Internet users across the world have reported connection problems today in what seems to be a major global outage.
Website Down Detector, which tracks the status of websites, reveals a spike in outages across several sites and online services – including eBay, Twitter, Xbox Live and PlayStation Network.
Generally speaking, the issues were being reported between 11am and 2pm. The chess players appear to have lost connection around 2pm.
On ThousandEyes.com, which tracks outages worldwide, a significant spike was reported shortly before midday, with affected regions including the United States, Brasil, Britain, France, and Japan.
Web performance and security giant Cloudflare reported that they were aware of, and investigating an issue which potentially impacted ‘multiple customers’.
