Russian Women’s Team is Ready for Tromsø Chess Olympiads
Hello everyone! A week of intensive training has just ended. Tomorrow morning our team is leaving for Norway to participate in the 2014 Chess Olympiads. You might recall that we won the previous Istanbul 2012 Olympiads, and so we have to do our best to defend our title. Our team will be comprised of (from left to right on the photo) WGM Natalija Pogonina (2508), GM Valentina Gunina (2501), GM Alexandra Kosteniuk (2533), WGM Olga Girya (2493), and GM Kateryna Lagno (2540). There will be fierce competition especially from China, Ukraine, Georgia, India so the Olympiads will be wonderful to follow! Below are some photos taken the last 2 days of our training camp (subscribe free to Chess Queen™ Alexandra Kosteniuk’s Instagram feed), enjoy!
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The XXII Winter Olympic Games will start in less than a month in Sochi (Russia). Alexandra Kosteniuk writes about her passion for sport and the Olympics and tells about her anticipation for the beginning of these Games (text in Russian, use 
Following her 
One of the toughest tournaments of the year in the women’s circuit is the Russian Superfinal. This year both Valentina Gunina and Alexandra Kosteniuk showed performances well above 2600 to grab Gold and Silver medals, with respectively 7 and 6.5 out of 9 games. Bronze medal was obtained by Natalia Pogonina with 5.5, then Kovalevskaya, Kovanova and Goryachkina 4.5 and T. Kosintseva and Bodnaruk 3.5/9. Below you will find many photos of the event. Alexandra beat T. Kosintseva and Pogonina in their direct encounters,and drew Gunina, but most important, she created a masterpiece in her game against Charochkina, presented at the bottom of this post.
