Hikaru Nakamura commented on Team USA’s loss to Germany at the Chess Olympiad 2026. Hikaru says that the US team needs to win all remaining matches to reach the gold medal. Nakamura notes Niemann’s loss and explains how he was chosen for board 3.

Hikaru Nakamura

Hikaru Nakamura

World's No. 2

“I do know for a fact that prior to the event, there was some discussion within the US team whether Hans Niemann would be playing on board 3 or Levon Aronian would be on board 3.

There were some arguments that Levon should play board 3 so that Hans could play on board 4 since he’s a little bit less experienced and potentially would be able to mow down some weaker players on the 4th board. At the end of the day, after the lively debates and discussions, Hans Niemann is ultimately on board number 3, and Levon is on board number four.

So, the future first American champion loses this game. This means Germany remains undefeated with a score of 5 out of 5. This means that the US now suffers a very crushing defeat in their hopes of trying to win the gold medal. This is devastating because now the US has no margin for error if they want to have any hope of competing for the gold medal. They will almost certainly have to win every match.

And as we know later on in the tournament, there are likely going to be matchups against the very talented Indian and Uzbek teams as well.”

The Chess Olympiad 2026 takes place from September 16 to 27 in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Team USA lost to Team Germany with a score of 1.5-2.5 in Round 5 of the event. USA is in 13th place with 10 points after 6 days of the event.

Credit: Lennart Ootes