Olympiad Spotlight: Spain
The 45th Chess Olympiad will take place in Budapest, Hungary from September 10-23, and to commemorate the event, we are highlighting some of the teams taking part, alongside a sale on the authors of these teams' courses.
In this Olympiad Spotlight post, we're talking about an old-school powerhouse of the game: Spain.
The Spanish team in total has won a total of seven medals in the open category, with the women's team having won three. Going into the 2022 Olympiad in Chennai, they fielded the fourth-strongest team and finished in 12th place. This year, they are the 13th-highest-ranked team going into the Budapest Olympiad.
Spain has a healthy club chess culture, with structured leagues and tournaments being widespread throughout the country. It was also home to one of the most important elite tournaments for many years: The Linares Tournament held in Linares, in the province of Jaén.
A Brief History of Chess in Spain
You cannot speak of the history of chess without mentioning Spain.
Chess was first introduced to Spain via Arab conquerors of the Iberian Peninsula who brought one of its early predecessors, shatranj.
In the early 16th century, chess started to take its current form in Spain. The way the bishop and the queen move today \\started in Spain around this time. Many postulate that the queen became the most powerful piece on the board reflecting the omnipotence of Queen Isabella I, arguably the most powerful person in the world at this time.
With such a rich history of chess, Spain has been producing top talent for centuries. One of the first household names in chess was Ruy López de Segura, a 16th-century player after whom the Ruy Lopez opening is named.
Spanish Olympiad Teams
Open Section
Captain - IM David Martinez- 2390 Standard Rating
David Martinez, better known as "El Divis", is an International Master and well-known persona in chess circles, particularly in the Spanish-speaking world, where he is one of the top commentators of the day. He often accompanies Pepe Cuenca to give entertaining commentary on events.
He's also a top trainer, having coached the first board of the open team and second board of the women's team, David Antón and Sabrina Vega, respectively.
His list of accomplishments is long, and his great coaching style and personality have made his courses for Chessable top hits. Not only is his catalog in Spanish outstanding and well-rounded, but he's also made his way into the English-speaking world with The Dragon Sicilian: Wing Attack.
First Board - GM David Antón Guijarro - 2669 Standard Rating
Leading the Spanish open team is David Antón, "El Niño" or "The Kid". But there is nothing childish about his fierce play, peaking at over 2700 elo.
With his ambitious style and gritty play, there is little doubt he's got what it takes to return to super-GM greatness, being only the 3rd Spanish player to ever reach such a status, after Olympiad teammates Francisco Vallejo Pons and Alexei Shirov.
Antón exemplifies his typical style of play in his sole Chessable course, David Antón Teaches 1.e4 e5, available in both Spanish and English.
Second Board - GM Alexei Shirov - 2665 Standard Rating
Coming in at 2nd board for Spain is Latvian-born legend Alexei Shirov.
Shirov initially switched federations to Spain in 1995, going back to play for Latvia from 2011-2018, and returning to play for Spain from 2018 to today.
In 1994, Shirov was the second-best ranked player in the world. In 1998, he defeated Vladimir Kramnik in a match to challenge World Champion Garry Kasparov for the title but this match never took place.
He is known for playing fiery, tactical chess, which only makes sense as he studied under one of the most daring tacticians of all time: fellow Latvian Mikhail Tal.
You can learn from him and his incendiary style with his aptly named course, Fire on Board
Third Board - GM Francisco Vallejo Pons - 2657 Standard Rating
Francisco "Paco" Vallejo Pons is another legend of the Spanish team.
He's been participating in Olympiads since the year 2000 and took home the Silver Medal at 2nd board in the 2010 edition.
In addition to being a regular Spanish Olympiad player, he has been crowned champion of Spain on several occasions, including 3 years in a row from 2014-16. At one point, Vallejo was one of the top 20 players in the world, thanks in large due to his wide-ranging repertoire.
Fourth Board - GM Alan Pichot - 2638 Standard Rating
Coming in at fourth board for Spain is Grandmaster Alan Pichot. Before switching to the Spanish team in 2023, Pichot represented his home country of Argentina in the Olympiad.
He was a teen prodigy, becoming world champion under 16 and Grandmaster at 17.
Pichot loves to play aggressively, as exemplified by his debut course for Chessable in Spanish, Ganando con el Gambito de Rey (Winning with the King's Gambit).
Fifth Board - GM Jaime Santos - 2624 Standard Rating
Jaime Santos will be representing the fifth board for Spain. A former top-3 player in his country, reaching aranking of 86th worldwide, he is known to be a valuable asset to the Spanish team.
In 2022, he won the Fifth Chess Festival of Salamanca, placing ahead of former world champion Veselin Topalov and had a great Olympiad, fighting for a medal until the very few last rounds, so he’ll be eager to better his results this time.
Women's Section
While the Open team might have bigger names, the Spanish Women's team is coming into this tournament looking quite strong, placing 8th in the initial rankings; compare that to 13th of the men's team. This might be one to watch out for.
Below are the players representing Spain in the Women's section, which will be captained by GM Iván Salgado:
- IM Sarasadat Khademalsharieh - 2489 Standard Rating
- IM Sabrina Vega - 2374 Standard Rating
- IM Ana Matnadze - 2345 Standard Rating
- IM Marta Garcia - 2318 Standard Rating
- WGM Monica Calzetta - 2220 Standard Rating
IM Sarasadat Khademalsharieh will play first board for the Women's team. Initially hailing from Iran, "Sara" was somewhat of a youth prodigy, having won many important tournaments as a youngster, including the World Girls Under-12 Championship in 2009.
Impressively, she placed second in a FIDE Women’s Grand Prix 2015-16 event in her hometown of Tehran, Iran, despite being the lowest-rated player.
It's worth mentioning that the 2nd board for the Women's team, IM Sabrina Vega, re-released the hit course, Calculation: A Complete Practical Guide for Tournament Players in Spanish.
Vega has also been crowned Spanish Women's Champion an impressive eight times. This Olympiad will be her sixth, and her first in 10 years.
The 45th Chess Olympiad will be taking place from September 10 to September 24, 2024 in Budapest, Hungary.
It will be interesting to see if the teams perform according to their initial ranking or if we will see some surprises and new stars come to light. Perhaps the Spanish teams will take the podium. What do you think?
