Dvorkovich feared walkout

The controversial decision of FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich to award gold medals to both finalists of the Online Chess Olympiad, Russia and India, was partly based on an aspect that he didn’t mention in his interview with Chess.com but in a consequent interview in Russian with Maria Emelianova on Chess.com’s Russian Twitch channel: An official of the Russian Federation warned him that the Russian players would refuse to play if the games would be restarted. Dvorkovich said that he wasn’t certain but that he felt obliged to prevent such a scenario.