Chess Olympiad 2022: Meet the Indian women who made chess history

In just half a day, the Indian women's chess team went from the near-certainty of a gold medal at the Chess Olympiad to the dismay of a bronze.

They still made history - as the first-ever Indian women's team to win a medal at an Olympiad.

The Indians were no underdogs. Koneru Humpy, Harika Dronavalli, Tania Sachdev, R Vaishali and Bhakti Kulkarni - a delightful mix of long-serving mould-breakers and young prodigies - were the top seeds in the women's section. It helped that neither Russia nor China participated in the Olympiad.

The Indians were within touching distance of gold for the most part of their campaign - and in sole lead heading into the final round - before an awry 1-3 loss to USA. Tania and Bhakti bungled their lower board games while Humpy and Vaishali held on to draws. Tania, unbeaten with eight points from 10 games until the last round, struggled to come to terms with an inexplicably terrible last day. She lost to America's Carissa Yip, and was evidently gutted.

"I think it's really hard right now to understand the gravity of winning the first medal for the Olympiad," Tania said soon after, eyes downcast, fighting back emotions. "More than anything else I think it was about the way the tournament was progressing, we were leading. We're now dealing with having lost out on gold rather than winning the bronze."  

It must be a unique, confounding feeling. A historic first medal that also serves as a memento of a missed opportunity. India did not lose their matches against the teams who finished ahead of them in the final standings - namely, Ukraine and Georgia. It was one of the reasons why a gold seemed probable. 

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