Chess Olympiad: Arjun Erigaisi attributes teams' success to great bonding

The Indians danced to Queen's 'We Are The Champions' after double delight
HYDERABAD: The Indian team was rocking to Queen's We are the champions after the double delight at the Chess Olympiad in Budapest on Sunday night. "Ahead of the final, we promised each other that we would dance to this iconic song. I am not sure whether the video is out yet. We were all dancing in our rooms after the victory," Arjun Erigaisi told TOI en route to Germany on Monday.
"It would have been nice to celebrate it with my family. But I spoke to my parents after our match against the USA. They were very happy and didn't want me to lose focus before the final game."
The 21-year-old Grandmaster from Telangana essayed a pivotal role in India's success story, winning nine and drawing two games on Board 3 to total 10 points. Arjun also won the individual gold and having accrued 19.2 Elo rating points at the Olympiad, he moved to world No. 3 with a live rating of 2797.2 points. "I am super happy with the double delight for me. The team did very well and I am happy with my performance as well. We took one game at a time and didn't put ourselves under any pressure," he said.
Arjun attributed the success to great camaraderie in the team. "The success is because of the team atmosphere. The team bonding is very strong. There was excellent team spirit and we were chilled out during the tournament. We know each other very well and the same team also played in the Asian Games," he explained.
That also explained why the trophy presentation was a la Rohit Sharma receiving the ICC men's T20 World Cup trophy in Barbados. Gukesh and Tania Sachdev imitated Lionel Messi while handing over the trophy to the team and Arjun said, "Yes, it was inspired by Messi and Rohit Sharma."
Arjun was on a roll at the Olympiad, racking up an impressive six-game win streak. "After defeating USA, we were sure of winning gold. But we didn't want to leave anything to chance. We wanted to focus and finish the job and we did exactly that in the final match (against Slovenia)."
He also explained the team's decision to make him play on Board 3. "It was our captain's (Srinath Narayanan) decision and it worked well. Recently, I have been playing in tournaments against players with sub2700 ratings. Gukesh and Praggna (Praggnanandhaa) were playing a lot against top players. So, that made sense. I am used to playing against such players. I would not say it is easy, but it suits me," he said.
Arjun, who became a GM aged 14 years and 11 months, said there's no pressure being world No. 3.