When India begin their FIDE Women's Olympiad campaign in Samarkand on Wednesday, Koneru Humpy will likely occupy the top board, as she leads the team's defence of the title that they had won two years ago.
Humpy missed that tournament two years ago, and has had an eventful year already, to say the least. But before we rewind to the past, the present indicates Humpy is in great form: At the Global Chess League, Humpy led the way for the Alpine APL Pipers to make the final on Sunday. She scored more points than anyone on her team, including the great Magnus Carlsen. Even though she lost a decisive game to Stavroula Tsolakidou in the final, Humpy's form is encouraging.
Why, you ask when GCL is rapid chess and the Olympiad is classical? Well, a number of players ESPN spoke to at the GCL said that even though classical is vastly different to rapid chess, form and momentum counts, as does confidence, and Humpy's carrying all that into the Olympiad after she had four wins and five draws in 12 GCL games.
Now, the (quick) flashback. This recent form becomes more commendable in the light of Humpy's travails over the past few months. Her results, for one, were really difficult -- particularly at the recent Cairns Cup where she finished 8th out of 10 players, with no wins in her nine games. But the major issue occurred when Humpy pulled out of the FIDE Candidates tournament in March-April, citing security concerns owing to the then escalating conflict between USA and Iran, one in which a British airbase in Cyprus had been hit by a drone.
Even after seeing her compatriot Vaishali Rameshbabu win that tournament, though, Humpy has no regrets about the decision that she took back then. "I have to give my priorities as a mother," she tells ESPN, "I can't take certain risks and I did whatever best I could as a player so far. It was not easy to handle everything. I was initially aiming for the Candidates this year, but I couldn't participate in it. And, some of the off-board reactions didn't make me happy," she says.
Back then, the Cyprus Chess Federation president Criton Tornaritis had said Humpy was spreading unfounded concerns, and that it harmed the sport and showed a lack of respect for the organizers and the players involved.
FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky had added, "While we respect Humpy's personal choice, we maintain that Cyprus is fully secure for the tournament to proceed smoothly. We cannot force a player to compete if they feel unprepared or uncomfortable in their current mindset."
Humpy says there were reactions from some other quarters of the chess world that her withdrawal might have been due to a lack of motivation to play, it hurt her. "If I wasn't motivated, I wouldn't have played in the whole series to qualify for the Candidates," she argues. Humpy says those reactions have been difficult to deal with because of the hurt they caused. Also, as a chess player, forgetting things doesn't come naturally, she says with a laugh.
She may laugh now, but the burden made 2026 a unique struggle -- Over her two decades (plus) in professional chess, she's seen many failures on the board, but those are not that difficult to deal with, she says, because there's an acceptance from every professional sportsperson that they won't win every tournament they play. Here, though, there was an obvious implication about her integrity and her motivation. That hurt her. She has now snapped out of that hurt though.
"I struggled a lot for a few months, but I think now I'm a much better person. It also made me learn a lot more about many people. So in one way, it's a good lesson for me also to learn many things. I take it as one of the important things in my life and I just move on," she said.
Humpy usually doesn't play back-to-back tournaments, but 2026 is a year she wants to reclaim. Which is why she wants to follow up her individual success in the GCL by helping India defend their hard-won crown.
