Latin America at the 2026 Chess Olympiad: Faustino Oro on board one, Cuba's medal and what separated Brazil from Peru
No Latin American team finished above 22nd, and that says little. Reading the region by final placing is reading the seeding list with noise. What the table hides is who rose further than rating predicted: Peru climbed twenty places in the open without drawing a match. Faustino Oro played all eleven rounds on Argentina's top board as the team's lowest-rated player. And Brazil finished on the same 14 points as Peru, eleven places behind.
9 min read · Published on 2026-09-29
Short answer
Argentina were the best Latin American team in both events at the Samarkand Olympiad: 23rd in the open and 22nd in the women's event. The region's only individual medal was board-four silver for Cuba's Ineymig Hernández Gil in the women's event. Set against the seeding, the table tells a different story. Peru rose from 53rd to 33rd in the open and Colombia from 50th to 37th in the women's event. Brazil dropped from 31st to 44th in the open. Faustino Oro, at 2537 the lowest-rated player in the Argentine team, played every round on board one and scored 7 out of 11, with six games against players rated above 2570. This page gives each team's numbers and the arithmetic behind them.
Event: 46th FIDE Chess Olympiad
How this was compiled: Checked on 29 September 2026, with the Olympiad over on 27 September. Placings, seeding, points and tiebreaks come from chess-results. Games and each player's board were checked in the official PGN broadcast on Lichess. Official performances come from the board-prize list; those marked as calculated were worked out by us with FIDE's rating-difference table, from the ratings in the PGN.
The essentials in a few lines
- Argentina were Latin America's best team in both events, with 15 match points: 23rd in the open and 22nd in the women's event.
- Faustino Oro played all 11 rounds on Argentina's top board and scored 7 points. Against his six opponents rated 2575 or more he scored 3; his only loss was to Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, board-one silver medallist.
- Peru were the region's team that beat their seeding by most in the open, from 53rd to 33rd, with 7 wins, no draws and 4 losses.
- Brazil scored the same 14 match points as Peru and finished eleven places behind: four of their five match wins were 2.5–1.5, and they ended with 24 game points to Peru's 29.
- Latin America's only individual medal was silver for Cuba's Ineymig Hernández Gil: an unbeaten 8 out of 9 on board four, with a 2443 performance from a 2157 rating.
The region against its own seeding
How did the Latin American teams do at the 2026 Chess Olympiad?
Argentina were the best in both events, 23rd in the open and 22nd in the women's. Against the seeding, the biggest climbers were Peru in the open (53rd to 33rd) and Colombia in the women's event (50th to 37th). Brazil dropped furthest in the open, from 31st to 44th.
A Latin American team's final place at an Olympiad is, first of all, a consequence of rating. The seeding list orders teams by the average rating of their players, and no team from the region was seeded in the top twenty. Saying Argentina finished 23rd says little; saying they were seeded 24th and finished 23rd says the rating held up.
That is why the table below puts both columns side by side. It shows two groups. Peru, Chile and Ecuador climbed in the open, each by more than ten places. Brazil, Cuba and Mexico finished below what their average rating predicted. In the women's event, Chile and Colombia climbed furthest, by 16 and 13 places. One word on method covers everything that follows: eleven rounds of a Swiss with nearly two hundred teams produce very close placings, and one more or one fewer win in the last round moves a team ten places. The table shows direction; it does not measure talent.
| Team | Open | Women |
|---|---|---|
| Argentina | 24 → 23 (15) | 28 → 22 (15) |
| Peru | 53 → 33 (14) | 39 → 41 (13) |
| Chile | 54 → 41 (14) | 70 → 54 (13) |
| Brazil | 31 → 44 (14) | 44 → 46 (13) |
| Colombia | 58 → 52 (13) | 50 → 37 (14) |
| Cuba | 44 → 53 (13) | 27 → 31 (14) |
| Ecuador | 87 → 63 (13) | 59 → 52 (13) |
| Mexico | 75 → 76 (12) | 54 → 67 (12) |
Faustino Oro on board one
How did Faustino Oro do at the 2026 Chess Olympiad?
He played all eleven rounds on Argentina's top board and scored 7 points: 4 wins, 6 draws and 1 loss. By our calculation his performance was 2598, 61 points above his 2537 rating. He drew with Mamedyarov, Martirosyan and Jorge Cori, and lost only to Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, in round 10.
The striking fact is the line-up. At 2537, Oro was the lowest-rated of the five Argentinians, below Diego Flores (2590), Fernando Peralta (2553), Sandro Mareco (2551) and Federico Pérez Ponsa (2541). Even so, he played all eleven games on board one, where each match's strongest opponents sit. We checked the board of every game in the official PGN.
The result holds up where the board matters. Against his six opponents rated 2575 or more, Oro scored 3 points: draws with Martirosyan, Cori, Mamedyarov and Tin Jingyao, a win over Tomi Nyback in the final round and the loss to Erdogmus, who finished with board-one silver and a 2839 performance. He was unbeaten through the first nine rounds. The counterpoint is in the table too: three of his four wins came against his three lowest-rated opponents, and his opponents' average, 2496, was below his own rating.
| Round | Opponent | Rating | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kyle Kuka (Kenya) | 2012 | 1 |
| 2 | Lee Junhyeok (South Korea) | 2401 | ½ |
| 3 | Omar Eltigani (Sudan) | 2259 | 1 |
| 4 | Haik M. Martirosyan (Armenia) | 2664 | ½ |
| 5 | Jorge Cori (Peru) | 2575 | ½ |
| 6 | Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan) | 2720 | ½ |
| 7 | Paulo Bersamina (Philippines) | 2398 | 1 |
| 8 | Tin Jingyao (Singapore) | 2584 | ½ |
| 9 | Jorge Viterbo Ferreira (Portugal) | 2529 | ½ |
| 10 | Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus (Turkey) | 2716 | 0 |
| 11 | Tomi Nyback (Finland) | 2593 | 1 |
Peru: twenty places above their seed, without a single drawn match
How did Peru finish 33rd in the 2026 Olympiad open?
By winning the matches they were meant to win, and winning them comfortably. Peru had 7 wins, no draws and 4 losses, all against teams that finished above them: Uzbekistan, Argentina, Spain and England. Four wins were 4–0, and their 29 game points helped on tiebreak.
Jorge Cori played all eleven rounds on board one and scored 7.5, with a calculated performance of 2565, close to his 2575. He lost to Abdusattorov, who would take board-one gold, and to Nikita Vitiugov. The result furthest above rating was Germán Quirhuayo's, rated 2381: 5.5 out of 7, a calculated performance of 2584, and a win over Sandro Mareco in the match against Argentina. Argentina won that match 2.5–1.5.
In the women's event, Deysi Cori scored 7.5 out of 10 on board one, with a 2447 performance. She is tenth on that board's official list and 131 points above her own rating. She lost only in the final round, to Alexandra Kosteniuk. Fiorella Contreras scored 8 out of 11. Even so, the women's team finished 41st, two places below its seed, a reminder that two players in good form do not make a four-board campaign.
Brazil: 14 match points, eleven places behind Peru
Where did Brazil finish at the 2026 Chess Olympiad?
44th in the open, with 14 match points, and 46th in the women's event, with 13. In the open, the team was seeded 31st. It won five matches, drew four and lost two, to Kyrgyzstan and Croatia.
The first explanation people reach for is the tiebreak: Brazil finished on the same 14 points as Peru and eleven places behind. That is true, but the cause comes earlier. Four of Brazil's five match wins were 2.5–1.5, and the team scored 24 game points out of 44. Peru, with the same 14 match points, scored 29. Sonneborn-Berger multiplies game points by the opponent's final strength, and narrow wins against mid-table teams yield little: Brazil finished on 266.5, Peru on 306.5.
The start mattered too. In round one, Brazil drew 2–2 with Botswana, who would finish on 10 match points. In a Swiss, an early draw drops a team into a lower score group, and Brazil did not face a single team that finished above 15 points. Luis Paulo Supi, on board one, scored 7 out of 10, with one loss, to Ivan Saric, and a calculated performance of 2553. Alexandr Fier, nearly always on board two, scored 3.5 out of 10. In the women's event, the best campaigns were Juliana Terao's 7.5 out of 10 and Kathie Librelato's 7 out of 11.
| Brazil | Peru | |
|---|---|---|
| Seed → final | 31 → 44 | 53 → 33 |
| Wins, draws, losses | 5, 4, 2 | 7, 0, 4 |
| Wins by 2.5–1.5 | 4 of 5 | 1 of 7 |
| Game points | 24 | 29 |
| Sonneborn-Berger (TB2) | 266.5 | 306.5 |
Cuba and the region's only medal
Did any Latin American player win an individual medal at the 2026 Olympiad?
Yes, one: Cuba's Ineymig Hernández Gil, silver on board four of the women's event. She scored 8 points from 9 games without a loss, with a 2443 performance. She came in rated 2157. In the open, no player from the region finished in the top three on their board.
The 286 points between Hernández Gil's rating and her performance were the largest gap among the thirty individual medallists in both events. She drew two games, with Rose Atwell of the USA and Aleksandra Milovic of Montenegro, and won the other seven, finishing with a win over Poland's Monika Socko, rated 2350. The Cuban team finished 31st, four places below its seed, which shows again that the individual medal and the team's placing measure different things.
Two other results from the region made the official board-performance lists. Argentina's María José Campos scored 7.5 out of 10 on board two of the women's event, with a 2353 performance, 14th on the list. Federico Pérez Ponsa, Argentina's reserve, scored an unbeaten 5.5 out of 8, with 2522, 11th among the open's reserves. The full list of medallists and how performance is calculated are in our individual-medals coverage.
Frequently asked questions
Which was the best Latin American team at the 2026 Chess Olympiad?
Argentina, in both events: 23rd in the open and 22nd in the women's, with 15 match points in each.
How many points did Faustino Oro score at the 2026 Olympiad?
7 out of 11, on Argentina's board one, with 4 wins, 6 draws and 1 loss, to Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus. His performance, by our calculation with FIDE's table, was 2598.
Where did Brazil finish at the 2026 Chess Olympiad?
44th in the open, with 14 match points, and 46th in the women's event, with 13. In the open, Brazil had the 31st-highest average rating.
Why did Peru finish ahead of Brazil on the same points?
On the first tiebreak, team Sonneborn-Berger: 306.5 to 266.5. Peru scored 29 game points to Brazil's 24, and the tiebreak weighs the game points scored against each opponent.
Update log
- 2026-09-29 — First published: placings against seeding, Faustino Oro's games and the Brazil–Peru comparison.
Sources
- 46th Chess Olympiad 2026 Open — final standings and tiebreaks — chess-results
- 46th Chess Olympiad 2026 Women — final standings and tiebreaks — chess-results
- 46th Chess Olympiad 2026 Women — board prizes — chess-results
- Uzbekistan, China Win 2026 Samarkand Chess Olympiad — Chess.com
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