Kazakh IM Alua Nurman stated that there are no state payments for second place at the Chess Olympiad 2026. Nurman explained that the Olympiad is not included in the list of competitions with provided payments. Alua spoke about it in an interview with Sportarena.kz.

Alua Nurman

Alua Nurman

Kazakh IM

“After returning to Kazakhstan, I was very surprised when employees of the Department of Physical Culture and Sports and the SASM of the city of Almaty informed me that we would not be paid a state reward for this achievement. And the result is not grounds for assigning monthly monetary payments to athletes.

As they explained to me, the reason is that the World Chess Olympiad is not included in the list of competitions whose results give the right to corresponding payments.

This raises a completely natural question for those responsible for sports: why did this happen?

How did a tournament in which national teams of all the leading chess countries of the world participate, and which is considered the main team competition for chess players, end up outside the state list?

And most importantly: how to fix this situation and include the World Chess Olympiad in the corresponding list?”

The Chess Olympiad 2026 took place from September 16 to 27 in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. The Kazakhstan women’s team finished the tournament in 2nd place with 18 points and did not lose a single match during the event. Their team reached its peak result for the second time in a row.

Credit: Michal Walusza / FIDE