Chess Olympiad Champions Team India Paid Custom Duty On Gold Medals Despite Exemption

Team India chess created history in August after winning its first-ever gold medal in the FIDE Online Chess Olympiad. The Chess Olympiad is one of the headline events in the sport and was held online earlier this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Indian team finally got hold of their gold medals, with team India chess vice-captain Srinath Narayan taking to Twitter to reveal the development. However, Srinath Narayanan’s tweet also raised eyebrows after the vice-captain suggested that the team had to pay customs duty on their gold medals despite there being an exemption for the same. After the initial ruling that declared Russia as the FIDE Online Chess Olympiad winners, an appeal by Team India chess meant that the title was shared by both Russia and India. A server outage had earlier led to two members of Team India chess losing their games due to a poor internet connection, despite being in good positions. Following the controversy, the International Chess Federation had later declared that both the countries will be declared as joint winners of the Chess Olympiad