Srinath Narayanan, the captain of the golden team of India – interview
The teams of India won double gold at the Chess Olympiad 2024. The open team – Arjun Erigaisi, Gukesh D, Praggnanandhaa, Vidit Santosh Gujrathi, and Pentala Harikrishna – were captained by Srinath Narayanan. Chessdom.com had the chance to speak to him before the start of the Olympiad and now he kindly agreed to a post-gold medal interview.
Congratulations on the gold medal! With a couple of days gone since the big triumph at Budapest, can you grasp the importance of the double gold achieved by India?
It is still a bit early. But I can grasp that it is an historic achievement and I happened to be the captain of one of the strongest teams in the illustrious history of Chess Olympiads.
You received a heroes welcome in your home country. Everyone seems to want to have a moment with the heroes, to get a photo, handshake, or an autograph. How does that feel?
It feels great to receive such adulation from our honourable Prime Minister, Chief Minister, the union sports Minister, the State Sports Minister and our chess federation. It makes us feel as if our achievement matters. The love and affection shown by the people also fills us with immense joy.
Before the Olympiad you mentioned in the interview that “this team needs help more to relax rather than to be pushed” The result says that you have succeeded! Were there any difficulties on the path of achieving this relaxed state? Was there a moment where pressure could be felt?
It wasn’t difficult. The players were also on the same page. We decided that we will be positive in general with each other and not play blame games. We also awarded a star medal for one player on the each day. We kept this tradition all through. Overall we had a lot of fun. The only game where we felt some pressure was before the round against USA, as we knew at some level that we could almost finish the tournament by that point, and our opponents were very dangerous. But in general it was a smooth sail.
See: Gold for Gukesh D and Arjun Erigaisi / Final standings Olympiad
You had the spotlight on yourself from day 1 with choosing the board order and placing Arjun Erigaisi on board 4. Now that the Olympiad is gone, can you tell us the secret about this move?
Gukesh and Pragg have mostly played in elite events recently, with opposition rated 2700+ and in some cases 2750+. Arjun had been playing a lot of opens with players below 2700, with impressive success. The idea was to simply let them continue what they did well.
Both Arjun and Gukesh are at the door of the 2800 club. With the rating deflation hitting the top players, what does this mean for the future of Indian chess?
It is normal that in every cycle the new generation takes over and challenges the existing generation. In most cases the top representatives of the existing generation continue to fight and compete for a long time. I expect the continuation of the same in this cycle as well. Gukesh and Arjun reaching 2800 is quite impressive, but it’ll be a challenge for them to continue rising, with so many top players losing rating in recent times. I believe that there are a lot of underrated top players now who are not even rated 2700 anymore, but in terms of strength, continuing to retain their class.
You said in the previous interview, ” I feel optimistic about Gukesh’s chances. ” Has this optimism increased after he placed the second highest performance in history
I think Gukesh is certainly stronger at the present moment than Ding, and the same pattern continued in Olympiad. In terms of history, I think it is similar situation to the match between Carlsen and Anand in 2013 in Chennai. But Ding can draw hope from the fact that the stronger player/team doesn’t necessarily always win in sporting events. Despite being stronger, one has to continue to keep motivation and do a number of things right and not get complacent. In this sense, the match will definitely be interesting.
How about the ladies team. They had a blast, winning the title and two individual gold medals – Deshmukh Divya and Agrawal Vantika
The women’s team were great. Like the open team, the young girls in their team really shined. Before the 10th round, they were behind Kazakhstan but in the last two rounds, they really showed the difference. Winning the last round by a margin of 3.5-0.5 under pressure is not something I have seen before, and also highlighted the mettle of our women’s team.
In the past several days you and your team were meticulously giving interviews, answering questions, visiting celebratory events, and even answering tweeter congratulatory messages.
As I mentioned earlier, the love and affection by people fill us with immense joy as essentially any sport is played for the people watching. This victory is as much theirs as it is ours.
What do you think of the random chess player club?
The random chess player club :) The one tweet with Vishy and Gukesh was original and witty, but I am not impressed with the copies :P