Poland Held to a Draw by Mongolia as the Olympiad for People with Disabilities Opens in Samarkand
By Cameron W. · Fri, 11 Sep 2026
The 3rd FIDE Chess Olympiad for People with Disabilities got underway in Samarkand on September 11, and top seed Poland didn't get the start its history in this event would suggest.
The 3rd FIDE Chess Olympiad for People with Disabilities got underway in Samarkand on September 11, and top seed Poland didn't get the start its history in this event would suggest. A team that won the inaugural edition in Belgrade with a perfect six-match sweep, and has been the sport's dominant force in this competition ever since, could only manage a 2-2 draw against Mongolia in round one.A record field, and an unusually shared spotlightThis year's tournament drew 41 teams, a record for the event, competing across seven rounds in the same host city as the main Chess Olympiad for the first time in the competition's history. That context makes Poland's stumble more noticeable than it might otherwise be, this is a team whose recent record includes a perfect run in Belgrade and continued near-total dominance in the editions since. A drawn opening match against a lower-seeded opponent isn't a crisis, but it's a real dent in what's usually been an overwhelming start.Five teams that didn't leave anything to chanceSeveral teams made an immediate statement with clean 4-0 sweeps: the United States over Zambia, Germany over Myanmar, Ukraine over Panama, Hungary over Kenya, and host nation Uzbekistan's top team over Uganda. Israel, the Philippines, and Spain were nearly as dominant, each winning 3.5 to 0.5. On the other end, Chile suffered the day's most lopsided defeat, falling 3.5-0.5 to the International Braille Chess Association's team, and Egypt, Belarus, Vietnam, Zimbabwe, and Uganda all dropped their openers by wide margins as well.The closer matchesNot every board produced a rout. Croatia and Turkiye split their match 2-2, the same scoreline Poland managed against Mongolia. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, India, and Uzbekistan's third team all won by the tighter 3-1 margin, results that will matter for tiebreaks if the tournament stays close. With 41 teams entered, one side, Eswatini, drew the round's bye.What's nextThe tournament runs one round per day through September 17, meaning Poland already has six more matches to make up the ground it didn't gain on day one. With the main Chess Olympiad's own opening round still five days away, this event will have played out most of its schedule before the bigger tournament even begins.