Hikaru Nakamura commented on the USA team’s performance at the Chess Olympiad 2026. Nakamura believes that the tournament was a disappointment for the US players. Hikaru notes that every player on the roster lost Classical points during the event.

Hikaru Nakamura

Hikaru Nakamura

World's No. 2

“The US team was able to win this final match against Turkey by a score of 3 to 1 with wins from Niemann and Aronian. But ultimately it was not enough.

They still got fourth on tiebreak. Even though they were in a pack of four players, but ultimately it wasn’t a very good event for the US. Every single player lost points. Levon was the one player who came close to not losing points. He lost 0.3 points.

But he did have a lot of shaky games which he was able to turn around and win. So even his result isn’t necessarily reflective of having played a great event. So very, very tough event for the US. Nobody really did very well and it’s definitely a huge disappointment for everybody on the team.”

The Chess Olympiad 2026 took place from September 16 to 27 in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. The United States of America team finished the tournament in 4th place with 17 points. World’s No. 2 Hikaru Nakamura did not play in the event.

Credit: Crystal Fuller