'Taking medicine and playing every day': How Koneru Humpy battled diarrhea to win two medals at the Chess Olympiad

Indian grandmaster Koneru Humpa NEW DELHI: What does playing for India really mean for an athlete? At what point does physical pain become too much? When does the body just say enough is enough? The Indian teams at the Chess Olympiad in Samarkand, Uzbekistan answered this question in their own way.Both the open and women had players who battled illness throughout the tournament, yet both took home medals – silver for the open team and bronze for the women. Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, who plays board 1 for the open team, has already told TimesofIndia.com how he shook off a rare bout of cold and fever to help India secure the team silver while winning the individual bronze.For Konera Humpy, the test was even more difficult. The board 1 player was under the weather for almost the entire Olympics, but still finished with a score of 7/10 and two bronze medals, one for the team and one individually.

Playing through it

Speaking to this website after her double medal at the 46th Chess Olympiad, Humpy revealed that she barely had time to recover before illness struck.“It was quite tiring for me because before the Olympics I also played the Global Chess League (GCL) and before the GCL I played the US Cairns Cup and one WR event in France,” she said. “So I’ve only been home for four or five days in between, and I’ve also been participating in an online camp on those days. The last two months have been pretty hectic for me.”The toll appeared almost immediately as soon as the only rest day (after round 6) in the schedule passed.

Koner Humpa at the Chess Olympiad (photo by Michal Walusza for FIDE)

“After a rest day, I got really sick. I had diarrhea, my stomach hurt, then I took medicine. So it was really hard for me,” she revealed.What kept her on the board wasn’t so much stubbornness as a sense of duty to the team. “Probably if it wasn’t to represent India, if it was a private team event, I would have taken a break and asked the other player to play,” she added. “But I felt that my presence was very important to keep me on the top plate, and since Vaishali was also not in good shape, I never thought of resting. I kind of just took the medicine and went and played every day.”The fight was even caught on camera, with action video showing the Indian chess legend taking medication.“Oh, yes,” she remembered. “I couldn’t get the antibiotic. I had some other medication. We somehow managed to get it from one of our Indian friends. They just handed it to me before the game so it was on video.”The 39-year-old explained what may have contributed to her condition, adding: “Probably since I’ve been eating out for so many months, it’s affected me somehow. After taking this antibiotic I think it was a lot better when I played the last round.”“I think it’s very obvious when you have too much of this food, because you can’t avoid it when you travel to tournaments. You have to eat in different places. Of course, as a teenager, you’ll be able to resist more. You’ll probably have more and more problems as you get older.”

A 25 move finish that sealed the medal

It was against this backdrop that Humpy produced one of the sharpest results of her campaign, a 25-stroke victory over Georgia’s Nana Dzagnidze in the final round, despite everything her body had put through, to secure individual bronze.“I was actually surprised by her opening choice. I didn’t expect it at all,” she said with a laugh. “I played it across the board and she made a pretty big mistake, she probably just miscalculated and allowed this sacrifice. It didn’t work the previous move, but when I played the rook on h3 (18.Rh3), it was on purpose. She just had to play the king on h8 and escape this grid.“There was a lack of tactical means to let her escape, so I think I made a good and accurate calculation to finish the game.”Playing the heaviest board available, Humpy expected a much tougher fight as she admitted: “I was expecting an even tougher fight in the last round and looking at her opening pick I felt like she was well prepared and just wanted to hold the top board while the rest of the team fought. It seems like that was their strategy from what I saw in her opening.”

Koneru Humpa during his 11th round match at the Chess Olympiad (photo by Rafal Oleksiewicz for FIDE)

However, the win did not give much breathing space to India as a team.“Once I won the game, Divya made a mistake and allowed the opponent a big tactic. Because of her loss, it didn’t give us any big advantage. But again we were lucky with Savitha in the fourth board where we were completely losing and then she was able to hold it,” she added.

Humpy’s best Olympics personally, tough for the team

Now that the dust has settled, Humpy rates this campaign as the strongest of his career on a personal level, even if the team fell short of a repeat gold.“When we competed in the Olympics, the expectations were high because of the previous gold,” she said. “But it’s practically not easy to keep the title as a team. So I wanted to treat this tournament like any other classic event and give my best.”The grandmaster, India’s No. 1 in the women’s section, continued, “If I compare all my Olympics, this is probably the best because whenever I’ve played an Olympics before, I’ve lost some rating. It’s the first time I’ve got a rating and I’ve also won an individual medal in a tournament, and I’ve remained undefeated at the top. I think if I didn’t play too well, I needed to take too many risks there; the victory, I was able to deliver in the last round.”However, as a team, they don’t mince their words. “I think it was a big setback because we also had Vaishali in bad shape. She lost two important, key matches, against Poland and Kazakhstan, and that actually affected the team’s result. We still had a chance against China. I can’t say we were unlucky because we were lucky many times on the fourth board,” Humpy elaborated.

Vaishali (left) and Koneru Humpy (right) play the top two boards for India (Photo: Rafal Oleksiewicz for FIDE)

“We lost a few games, probably four or five, but it just completely turned around, unexpectedly. So I would say our major disadvantage was that we didn’t have Vaishali in form. While we were very strong on paper, in practice it was a bit of a handicap without her; it was basically me and Divya as the main players, with Vantika and Savitha holding the third and fourth boards.”When directly asked if health scares or Vaishali’s form were the bigger obstacle, she pointed to the sheer physical strain of the schedule itself over both.“For me personally, it was more challenging to maintain the energy to play all the matches because I only took a break in the second round. Since then I played all nine remaining matches, 10 out of 11 in total. It was also a difficult decision for the coaches who to place and who to rest,” she recalled. “It used to take up a lot of time every day, but the call was purely theirs. I never interfered in those decisions even though I was a senior member.”

what’s next

There is no long break built in yet.“I’ve got the European Club Cup starting on October 17, so I’ll be playing that,” she said. “That’s all I’ve got confirmed for now. Then I’ll take a break around November.”As for the next cycle of the Olympics, two years from now, Humpy isn’t ready to look that far ahead.ALSO READ: ‘There are sometimes just these blind spots in chess’: Nihal Sarin looks back on his Chess Olympiad loss to Uzbekistan | Exclusive“I don’t really think about it,” she concluded with a laugh. “It’s a long way to think. I don’t even know if I’ll be playing very actively after two years. I hope that if I could, I’d be very happy, but the competition at this level is also very high. I don’t even think much about it anymore. I just take it tournament by tournament.”