Dubai 1986 our best performance?

Jimmy Liew write an interesting review about the Malaysian Men's team performance in the 2010 Olympiad, Khanty Mansiysk.

Generally, i agree with him that Dubai 1986 is our Men's team best achievement so far. They finish in the 42th place with Jimmy - 28, playing board 1 , was at his peak. His best game is in the 2nd round when he beat Finnish Champion - IM (now GM) Yrjola Jouni . The game was regard as one of the best in Dubai 1986.

Having said that, I would like to raise a few important points which we should consider when comparing the performance of our team in every Olympiads .

(i) post Soviet Union era ( 1991 onwards) when this mighty chess country split into 15 different republic!

(ii) post Yugoslavia era ( 1991 onwards) this country split into 5 different republic

(iii) post Czechoslovakia era (1991 onwards) this country split into two republic

(iv) the participation of the physically handicap teams

In my opinion, the first factor - which is the post Soviet Union era made a big different. In the Soviet Union era, country like United States, England, Yugoslavia and Hungary are the medal contender for medals. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992 which split the country into 15 republics, countries like Armenia, Ukraine, etc has made a "new ordeal" in chess Olympiad. Just looks at the Tajikistan team composition below. They are the "weakest" ex-Soviet republic in Khanty Mansiysk.

62. Tajikistan (TJK / RtgAvg:2436 / TB1: 10 / TB2: 218)
Bo.		Name	Rtg	FED	Pts.	Games	Rp
1	GM	Amonatov Farrukh	2602	TJK	7,0	11,0	2516
2	IM	Nazarov Anvar	2335	TJK	0,5	2,0	0
3	IM	Isaev Jamshed	2382	TJK	6,0	11,0	2298
4	FM	Djuraev Sokhib	2397	TJK	6,0	10,0	2304
5		Khouseinov Rashid	2364	TJK	4,5	10,0	2166

Of course, Khanty Mansisyk 2010 is not our best performance in the post Soviet's Olympiad but lets compare it with Dubai 1986.

	Dubai 1986	Khanty Mansiysk 2010
Total team	108	149
Malaysian (men) final ranking	42	92
Total number of host country team	2 UAE A UAE B	5 Russia 1 Russia 2 Russia 3 Russia 4 Russia 5
Total number of physically handicap teams	-none-	3 IBCA IPCA ICSC
The break up of former Soviet Union	1 team (Soviet Union)	14 teams Ukraine Armenia Azerbaijan Belarus Estonia Kazakhstan Georgia Lithuania Uzbekistan Kyrgyzstan Latvia Turkmenistan Tajikistan Moldova
The break up of former Yugoslavia	1 team (Yugoslavia)	5 Serbia Croatia Bosnia Slovenia Montenegro
The break up of former Czechoslovakia	1 team (Czechoslovakia)	2 Czech Republic Slovakia

HTML Tables

Dubai 1986

Team Performance rating : 2320

Click here for details of the team performance rating

Khanty Mansiysk 2010

Team Perfomance rating : 2251

Click here for details of the team performance rating

In term of team performance ratings, it's clear that our men team at Dubai 1986 perform better then the Khanty Mansiysk's team. However, let say that the Dubai 1986's team were to face the post -Soviet & Yugoslavia countries...how would they end in the final ranking? Only God knows...

source: Olimpbase