Fabiano Caruana commented on the USA team’s performance at the Chess Olympiad 2026. Caruana believes that his team had no chance of winning the gold medal. Fabiano notes that all players on the team underperformed except Levon Aronian. Caruana spoke about it in a conversation with Cristian Chirila on the C-Squared Podcast.

Fabiano Caruana

Fabiano Caruana

World's No. 3

“Looking back, of course, we didn’t have really a realistic chance of gold.

If you look at how we played, how Uzbek players played, and other teams as well, we didn’t really have a realistic chance of gold.

I think we did have a realistic chance for medals, for sure… All of us underperformed except for Levon. I think Levon did well, but nothing crazy by his standards.

He just did quite well.”

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. Levon Aronian received a bronze medal for his play on Board 4.

Credit: Lennart Ootes