At the 45th Chess Olympiad, held in Hungary in 2024, 975 players participated in the open event and 909 in the women’s event. Not every woman played in the women’s event. The 46th Chess Olympiad will be in Uzbekistan, from September 15–27, 2026. How many women will play in its open event?
2024 Olympiad open event
I didn’t check all 975 names listed for the open event at the 45th Chess Olympiad. Instead, I checked about 300 names and found that 10 of those belonged to females. In FIDE’s alphabetical order, here are the ones I spotted:
Berend, Elvira (Luxembourg). She is a WGM and, as of August 2026, the second-highest rated active player of any gender in her country.
Khalil, Manar (Syria). She is a WFM.
Marochkina, Nadezhda (Senegal)
Ofowino, Toritsemuwa (Nigeria)
Prisca Estelle Pierrette Nkolo Mbengone (Senegal)
Quickpen, Deborah Ebimobo-ere (Nigeria)
Sihanath, Souphaphone (Laos)
Vadlamani Supraja (Niger)
Wah Wah Lwin (Myanmar)
Zakari Halilou Maimouna (Niger)
Due to not checking most of the names on the list, I may have missed some other females who played. But at least 10 girls and women, and most likely more than 10, played in the open event at the 45th Chess Olympiad.
FIDE Commission for Women’s Chess
I hope that the FIDE Commission for Women’s Chess will track how many women play in the open event at the 46th Chess Olympiad. Perhaps tracking could be one of the commission’s projects for September.
For August, the commission is seeking respondents for its Women in Chess Representation, Participation and Development Survey – a global initiative designed to better understand the experiences, participation, opportunities, and challenges of women in chess. Please fill out the survey before its August 28, 2026, deadline.
Open, not “Men’s”
A comment on FM Dennis Monokroussos’s Substack post from July 2026 asked why he called the open teams at the Chess Olympiad “Men’s” teams. He replied, “Because even though there is a distinct women’s event, women can play in the open section. Men will constitute 99-100% of the participants.” The percentage of men may not that high, based on the numbers discussed above for the 2024 Olympiad.
Queen Trap
Even before 2024, there have been women participants in the open Olympiad events, including GM Judit Polgar (Hungary) and GM Pia Cramling (Sweden). Monokroussos mentioned Polgar but failed to mention Cramling.
Singer and songwriter Juga Di Prima’s most recent chess video Queen Trap was filmed on the rest day of the 2024 Chess Olympiad. It features Polgar and Cramling along with other women chess leaders. The FIDE Commission for Women’s Chess collaborated with Juga on the project.
Here is a game where Cramling trapped the queen of her opponent.
