19th Chess Olympiad — Siegen 1970

◇Sixty nations, capped for the first time

Interest had outgrown the format: sixty-four federations applied and, for the first time, entries were capped and latecomers turned away, leaving sixty teams and some 360 players — among them 35 grandmasters. The competition ran in two stages. Six preliminary groups of ten teams each sent their top two into the twelve-nation Championship Final (Final A), while the remaining sides were sorted into Finals B, C, D and E. Points are counted within each section, so a strong lower-group total can exceed a weaker showing higher up.

The Soviet team fielded six grandmasters behind Spassky and were the clear favourites, but the field had tightened. Hungary and Yugoslavia both pushed the champions all the way to the final rounds.

◇A single point of daylight

The Soviet Union finished on 27½ board points, but Hungary closed to 26½ and Yugoslavia to 26 — the narrowest of the long Soviet gold runs. The United States took fourth on 24½, ahead of Czechoslovakia (23½) and hosts West Germany (22). It was the tenth consecutive Soviet Olympiad victory, won on reputation and depth as much as on comfort.

Spassky led from the front, scoring 9½/12 on board one, and Tigran Petrosian pushed his personal Olympiad unbeaten streak out to ninety games — a measure of just how hard the Soviet line-up was to breach even in a lean year.

◇The game everyone came to see

The Soviet Union met the United States on the top boards, and Spassky against Fischer was the confrontation the chess world had waited for. Roughly three thousand onlookers watched the reigning champion beat the American who was tearing through the qualifying cycle. The result flattered nobody's illusions — Fischer would win the rematch that mattered, at Reykjavik in 1972 — but at Siegen the champion had the last word.