June 14, 2025

Arjun’s MGD1 Wins World Rapid Team Championship

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GM Arjun Erigaisi bounced back to score 3.5/4 and lead Team MGD1 to gold medals in the 2025 World Rapid & Blitz Team Championship after a perfect four match wins on the final day. GM Levon Aronian‘s Hexamind took silver, while GM Viswanathan Anand won another masterpiece as Freedom took bronze after a heartbreaking late queen blunder by GM Alireza Firouzja against GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov cost favorite WR Chess a podium place. 

Day four, when the Blitz begins, starts Saturday, June 14, at 9 a.m. ET / 15:00 CEST / 6:30 p.m. IST.

FIDE World Rapid Team Championship Final Standings (Top 10)

Team MGD1 edged out Hexamind Chess Team by a single point, while Freedom had the best tiebreaks of the three teams on 17 points.














Rank Seed Team Matches + = – Points TB
1 6 Team MGD1 12 10 1 1 21 615
2 9 Hexamind Chess Team 12 9 2 1 20 642
3 5 Freedom 12 6 5 1 17 636
4 4 Uzbekistan 12 7 3 2 17 614
5 1 WR Chess Team 12 8 1 3 17 593.5
6 7 Germany and Friends 12 8 0 4 16 548
7 14 Duobeniajan Costa Calida ESJ 12 7 1 4 15 489.5
8 13 Generation XYZA 12 7 1 4 15 482
9 3 Malcolm’s Mates 12 6 2 4 14 570.5
10 8 Ashdod Elit Chess Club 12 6 2 4 14 545.5

Full games and standings

Leinier Dominguez, Vidit Gujrathi, Anish Giri, and Levon Aronian took silver with Hexamind. Photo: Rafal Oleksiewicz/FIDE.

MGD1 went into the final day of the World Rapid Team Championship as co-leaders with Hexamind, and it turned out the crucial action for gold took place in the first round of the day. MGD1 squeezed out a 3.5-2.5 win, while Hexamind were held to a draw after GM Sam Sevian (an unbeaten 8/11) took down individual World Rapid Champion GM Volodar Murzin. 

That gave MGD1 the sole lead, and ultimately the title, after both teams won their remaining three matches.

After a disastrous 0.5/4 on day two, Arjun hit back with 3.5/4, starting with a win over GM Richard Rapport, then rescuing a draw from a lost endgame against GM Nihal Sarin…

…before ending with two fine attacking wins against GMs Jose Martinez and Luke McShane. 25.Ne6! was a nice move to get the chance to play in a deciding match for your team.

Arjun later credited his team, saying: “I was having an off tournament in the middle, and someone was always making sure to step up and make up for this.”

The other MVP on the final day was 18-year-old GM Pranav Venkatesh, who scored 4/4 to make it 7.5/8 in total and a gold medal on board five.

Tuan Manh Le with the day’s most memorable resignation. Photo: Rafal Oleksiewicz/FIDE.

It was fitting that the moment he beat GM Ivan Saric was the moment MGD1 clinched the title. 

Team captain GM Srinath Narayanan had also captained India to Olympiad gold, but said that victory was expected, while MGD1 won World Rapid gold as an underdog. A big part of the success was down to the team’s “recreational player” Atharvaa P Tayade, who followed in the footsteps of Pang Bo, who in 2024 started with 16/16. 

Atharvaa “only” made it to 11/11 before losing the final game—after the team had clinched the title—to Murat Omarov, who played less games, but won all five of them!

“I could not replicate it” said Atharvaa about his great predecessor, while saying he was happy to be “the new Pang Bo.” Like the Chinese player, being rated sub-2000 is far from the whole story, since the Indian star confirmed he’s rated around 2900 at bullet chess. Ominously for the other teams, he commented, “I tend to like playing fast—that’s kind of where I excel,” and said he’s excited about the upcoming Blitz.

Arjun revealed that he lost to Atharvaa in an Indian championship at the age of nine! Photo: Rafal Oleksiewicz/FIDE.

Perhaps the greatest drama on the final day came in the battle for bronze. Top-seed WR Chess had underperformed for a second year in a row, but only needed a draw in the final match to guarantee at least the same Rapid bronze medals as it won in 2024. Instead the team fell to defeat.

It all came down to the game on top board, which would prove incredibly dramatic. It also had a back story, since Abdusattorov used to play for WR Chess, but was ultimately replaced by… Firouzja!

Firouzja didn’t disappoint, still winning gold on board one, ahead of Abdusattorov in second, but the final game would finish disastrously for the Iranian-French star. 

In the circumstances Alireza Firouzja did well not to slam the table in despair! Photo: Rafal Oleksiewicz/FIDE.

It was an enthralling game, where Abdusattorov gave up his queen for two rooks but was soon losing, then it was equal, then Firouzja rejected a draw by repetition, then Abdusattorov was briefly winning, then Firouzja kept pressing in an equal position and it paid off as he was winning again. Then, on move 82, Firouzja took on g5 with the wrong pawn and was suddenly dead lost as Abdusattorov swung over his rook to win his opponent’s queen before slamming the clock to emphasize the point. 

That win allowed Uzbekistan to catch WR Chess on points and finish a place above them in fourth, but bronze went to Freedom, led by Anand. It was fitting, therefore, that Anand finished with another masterpiece, after an eventful day. He’d pushed Abdusattorov to move 112 in round 10 trying to win rook + bishop vs. rook, before his opponent correctly claimed a draw by the 50-move rule.

Then in the final round, Anand defeated GM Jorden van Foreest in brilliant style. That’s our Game of the Day, which GM Rafael Leitao has analyzed below.

Vishy Anand found a beautiful finish against Jorden van Foreest. Photo: Rafal Oleksiewicz/FIDE.

That meant the 3.5/4 scored by both GMs Wesley So and Hikaru Nakamura on the final day of the Rapid was in vain.

The action now switches to the World Blitz Team Championship, where WR Chess will be hoping to hit back and defend the title they won in 2024. They got a boost for that event with the news that GM Ian Nepomniachtchi will be able to join the action after all.

On Saturday we’ll have four pools of teams playing a round-robin with the aim of finishing in the top-four. The 16 surviving teams will them play for the title in a knockout on Sunday.

How to watch?


The 2025 FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Team Championships run June 11-15 in London, UK, with over 50 teams of six players competing. Each team must feature at least one female player and one “recreational player,” never rated 2000+. The Rapid is a 12-round Swiss with a time control of 15 minutes for all moves, plus a 10-second increment per move. The Blitz (3+2) begins with teams playing a round-robin in pools, before the top 16 play a knockout, where each clash features two mini-matches.

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