Chess
Chess Olympiad 2026: Indian teams left stranded in Samarkand with rooms not allotted for 5 hours
GM Srinath Narayanan, the non-playing captain of the Indian open team, took to social media to express his disappointment.
Indian teams celebrate after winning the 2024 Chess Olympiad in Budapest (Photo credit: FIDE)
The Indian chess teams which travelled to Samarkand, Uzbekistan for the 2026 Chess Olympiad were left stranded with no rooms allotted for five hours on Tuesday.
GM Srinath Narayanan, the non-playing captain of the Indian open team, took to social media to express his disappointment.
"Having a terrible experience at the @FIDE_chess 2026 Olympiad," wrote Srinath.
"The team landed 5 hours ago at Samarkand airport. The team still haven’t been allotted rooms, with absolutely no clarity on when it’ll be allotted," he further added.
Austrian Felix Blohberger also expressed his frustration over the same issue in a reply to Srinath's post.
"Same here, we arrived yesterday at 6a.m. at the hotel and our captain got his room at 1:30p.m," Blohberger wrote.
The 2026 Chess Olympiad is slated to kickstart on Tuesday with the opening ceremony. The first round matches are slated for Wednesday.
The Indian teams comprising of reigning world champion Gukesh Dommaraju, Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, Arjun Erigaisi, Nihal Sarin, Vidit Gujrathi, Koneru Humpy, Divya Deshmukh, Vaishali Rameshbabu, Savita Shri, Vantika Agarwal, Swayams Mishra, and Srinath had flown to Samarkand on Monday.
Both the Indian open and women's teams are the reigning Chess Olympiad champions, having lifted the title two years ago in 2024 at Budapest, Hungary.