2024-09-11 10:59:15
Bulgaria’s men’s and women’s national teams learned the names of their opponents for the first round of the Budapest Chess Olympiad, which opened on Tuesday in the Hungarian capital.
At the start of the biggest chess forum in the world, the men’s team, which is ranked at number 24, will play the squad of Pakistan, which is number 120 in the starting list.
For the ladies, the Bulgarians, who are European champions for 2023, open the tournament with a match against Zimbabwe. And here the Bulgarian women emerge as favorites, as they are placed at number 12 in the scheme, while the African team is number 99 in the ELO ranking.
For men, 197 teams have applied for participation, while for women, 183 nations will compete for the first place.
The national teams of Bulgaria are led by grandmasters Kiril Georgiev and Petar G. Arnaudov. Georgiev selected Ivan Cheparinov, Arkadiy Naidich, Martin Petrov, Momchil Petkov and Grigor Grigorov to participate. For the ladies, Petar G. Arnaudov will rely on the team that brought the European title from Budva: Antoineta Stefanova, Nurgyul Salimova, Victoria Radeva, Beloslava Krasteva and Gergana Peycheva.
The Chess Olympiad will be held in 11 rounds and continues from today until September 22.