‘If India won a medal, we owe it’: Swayams captain Mishra on Chess Olympiad heroics Savitha Shri | Exclusive

Challenges for Swayams started even before the tournament. Getting the team to this stage was a project in itself, with busy, overlapping schedules making it difficult for the players to train together in person. NEW DELHI: In the Open and Women’s Chess Olympiad, only one player won an individual gold medal for India at the 2026 Chess Olympiad in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. That was Chennai’s 19-year-old Savitha Shri Baskar. Savitha was often the one India could rely on when the team was staring at heartbreak. As her games routinely went down to the wire, she was constantly fed game after game by someone who made sure she never had to think about anything but the board during India’s bronze medal push.“If we wanted anything, he was always there and gave us everything like water, bananas, and he brought endless coffee for me because I played till the last minute, he made sure I eat well and get energy,” recalled Savitha, before calling Swayams Mishra “the best captain ever”.It was new territory for Mishra in a role he had been familiar with for a long time.“I have been a part of the women’s team since 2022, but this was the first time I was captaining completely. In 2024, I captained a few matches but this was a completely new experience,” he told TimesofIndia.com during an exclusive interaction.“This time I have to be with the players in the tournament hall, especially in critical games, so the emotions are completely different than when you are outside. It was a little different and it was not easy.”

Coffee, bananas and watching helplessness

The job, according to Mishra, was less about tactics and more about maneuvering of a different kind.“It was hectic and exhausting because as a captain you try to watch all the games going on, not just one player. At the same time, sometimes you see a player make a mistake; you want to do something but you can’t; you just have to wait for it to develop naturally,” he admitted. But what he could control, he controlled.“What I tried to do was look at what the players needed. If it’s a longer game, they needed some energy or something to eat, so I made sure they had that instead of spending time getting it themselves around the third or fourth hour.”Viewers watching the games live have witnessed the results of this instinct in real time, with water bottles, bananas and coffee cups appearing at the right moments.

Build-up: Virtual camps and logistics that almost derailed things again

Challenges for Swayams started even before the tournament. Getting the team to this stage was a project in itself, with busy, overlapping schedules making it difficult for the players to train together in person.With the help of the All India Chess Federation (AICF), the team turned to virtual camps in the run-up to the Olympics.“It all started with camps like organizing the camp online where we found that most of the players’ schedules were very tight, so we organized the online camp because the players were not able to find common timings to meet their busy schedules,” Mishra revealed.The challenges followed the team in Samarkand, where India, like several other nations, faced problems with accommodation and food.“On the first day, with accommodation issues, the AICF stepped up and president Nitin Narang and HOD Abhijit Kunte ensured that the players got the rooms first,” he said. “President Narang was also present and helped us with most things.Food then became another issue and Mishra recalled that “when the food wasn’t too ideal, the options weren’t great, the AICF made sure that the food was Indian food that people got so that they didn’t lack energy and didn’t go around like, say, their routine and other things weren’t disturbed.”

Vaishali decision

The team bronze was not born easily, without a share of difficult attempts. One of the most difficult was deciding which four players from the five-man squad would take the board each round.“It was not easy for me to choose who to play because it was always difficult, Savitha and Vantika were performing very well in the last boards and Vaishali also had good chances; we wanted her to play. It is very difficult when one of your best players is not in form and the others are performing very well. Vaishali tried, she gave her best, but it was decided to stay,” he told the World Championship. challenger on the board for only six of the eleven games, he sighed.With Vaishali, who had just one win in the entire Olympics and finished with a score of 2.5/6, due to challenge for the world title next year, Mishra also addressed whether this stretch of poor form carried any psychological weight in the bigger picture.“We had a discussion and she didn’t think about the World Cup at all. She wanted to focus in this Olympics and give her best for India, but it didn’t work out. I think she is a strong enough professional player who should come back much stronger and prove herself as a world champion. I wish she would win the World Cup.”

Deck-by-deck analysis from the captain

“Humpy on board first, I think it will be her best Olympics. India hasn’t won a medal on board for a while and her win (Bronze with 7/10), unbeaten, against strong opposition was very good. On board first we were never on the back foot,” explained skipper Mishra.Council two, however, told a different story.“Vaishali started well. She had some tough opponents who didn’t make mistakes and played with precision against her. That changed against Poland – she was actually in a better position and wanted to win. There were a few chances to make it easy for a draw but she wanted to win and in the process ended up making mistakes and losing,” the coach added.“Then she had another critical match against Kazakhstan, where she had chances to equalize again, but she wanted to win it for the team. A draw would have given us 2-2 there because Savitha’s board was not clear yet. So she tried and it failed. You can tell she was always there for the team, even if her performance was not great.”On the contrary, individual silver medalist Divya Deshmukh proved to be one of the pillars with a score of 6.5/10.“She took a lot of black, seven out of ten games, and was always ready whenever the team needed her. She had a consistent performance and gave us some quick wins that put pressure on other opponents.”It came after a rough patch as Mishra continued: “She started completely out of form; the Cairns Cup wasn’t as expected, the GCL wasn’t great. But she came back very strongly from there and was always reliable. She lost the last round but she did the job until then.”Vantika Agrawal, on board four for most of the tournament before Savitha came along, drew measured praise.“She was consistent. There was one game, against China, which was very close, where she was close to a draw and under pressure she missed something. Otherwise, she did her job and gave us points on the last board,” he added.And then Savitha. Mishra didn’t hold back on the scrutiny that followed her selection.“There were a lot of people questioning her place, journalists saying there were players taller than her and so on. But she was qualified by selection and won the Asian continent a few months ago. She also played in the Women’s Team World Cup, so I always knew her as a team player.”“Whenever we gave her an opportunity, she delivered. From the seventh round onwards, her form dropped a bit compared to the opening rounds as she made some mistakes; the quality was not quite what she expected. But she always made up for it in the last hour and completely changed the outcome of the match. If India won a medal, we owe it to her.”

Bronze and what the team takes from it

Asked if anyone in the camp was happy with the bronze, Mishra did not pretend otherwise.“We are not satisfied. The color of the medal would have been different and we would have been much happier. But even in your not-so-good times, if you manage to win a medal, it shows how strong the team is. We expect to come back even stronger next year and win the gold.“I know people might be disappointed; the fans might be disappointed; we’re just as disappointed. But everyone tried their best. The margins were very tight.”For him, the bigger lesson of the tournament had less to do with India specifically than with the state of women’s chess as a whole.“We didn’t underestimate anyone, but there were a lot of teams that created a stir. Mongolia, who we played in the fourth round, and Greece in the third round, both ended up causing upsets elsewhere. Against the silver Kazakh team, Mongolia also won before finishing 2-2. In the last few Olympics, it’s been smooth sailing for the top seeds. It means that this year, mainly the weaker women’s teams have been able to make an impact. chess.”It’s a tournament Mishra will remember as much as his medal, a campaign where India were, in his own words, “always on the wrong side of where we wanted to be”, saved by more than one teenager fueled by endless cups of coffee, and still somehow, more bronze than nothing.