31st Chess Olympiad — Moscow 1994

◇A record field in Moscow

One hundred and twenty-four teams contested the open event over fourteen rounds of four-board Swiss chess, the largest Olympiad field assembled to that point. With the Soviet Union dissolved, its former republics arrived as independent nations, and the tournament also welcomed the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Macedonia competing under their own flags for the first time. As hosts, Russia was entitled to enter a second squad, and both would leave their mark on the final table.

The pace was set by Russia "A", whose line-up around Kasparov carried the strongest average rating in the hall. They finished on 37½ points, clear of the field, to claim the gold medals on home soil.

◇One nation, two medals

Behind the champions the fight for silver and bronze was unusually tight. Bosnia & Herzegovina, competing at only their second Olympiad as an independent state, claimed silver on 35 points. Bronze went to Russia "B" on 34½, edging England on the same score by tiebreak, with Bulgaria and the Netherlands close behind on 34.

That Russia's reserve team should out-finish established chess powers was extraordinary — a measure of the depth of Russian chess in the mid-1990s, and the reason Moscow 1994 remains the only Olympiad at which the same nation took two of the three medals.

◇Individual honours

The strongest single performance came from a rising Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria, whose 2781 rating performance topped the field. Daniel Cámpora of Argentina scored the best result on board one at 83.3%, while Yasser Seirawan of the United States led the fourth boards on 85%. In the open event Judit Polgár took first board for Hungary, becoming the first woman to occupy that seat for her country at an Olympiad. Georgia, led by Maia Chiburdanidze, won gold in the concurrent women's event.