Juggling Chess Olympiad prep and commentary gig in India: The other side of GM Irina

NEW DELHI: For most of its history, American women’s chess had a very simple relationship with the Olympiad podium. It did not have one. Not once, in over four decades of trying, had the United States women’s team finished among the medals at chess’s biennial team championship.Then, in 2002, Susan Polgar switched her allegiance from Hungary to the United States. Two years later, after stepping away from top-level competition to raise her two sons, she sat down on Board 1 in Calvià, Mallorca, and dragged a young, unheralded American team to silver, second only to China and ahead of a Russian juggernaut that had ruled women’s chess for a generation.It was the first medal of any colour the country had ever won in the women’s category.Bronze followed in Dresden four years later, in 2008.