India has secured a spot in the semi-finals of the Online Chess Olympiad after Armenia crashes out due to a technical error.
Armenia appealed as they tried raising an issue about the platform on which the Olympiad was conducted, but the technical team did not find any error with the server, thereby rejecting their appeal.
This led to Armenia backing-out from the tournament which resulted in India's place in semi-finals being confirmed.
In the first round of the quarter-finals, India was 2&1/2-1&1/2. GM Nihal Sarin was playing against GM Haik Martirosyan in a bishop endgame. They were on 10 seconds each when Haik suddenly stopped moving his pieces. The timer ended and Sarin was declared the winner.
In the ultimate game WGM Humpy Koneru lost to WGM Elina Danielian.
Levon Aronian, the Armenia GM, was very dissatisfied with FIDE's decision. Taking to Twitter, he wrote, "As a leader of a 3 times Olympic champion I feel very dissatisfied with FIDE's decision to reject our just appeal in our match against India. Haik Martirosyan lost on time due to disconnection from the platform. We proved that our connection was stable."
