ASTANA – Kazakhstan has announced its national teams for the 46th FIDE Chess Olympiad, which will take place in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, on Sept. 16-27.
Photo credit: kazchess.kz
The women’s team will be led by Grandmaster Bibisara Assaubayeva, currently ranked fifth in the FIDE women’s world rankings. She will be joined by Alua Nurman, Meruert Kamalidenova, Elnaz Kaliakhmet and Zarina Nurgaliyeva. Pavel Kotsur will serve as the team’s captain, reported the Kazakhstan Chess Federation.
Three members of the squad – Assaubayeva, Nurman and Kamalidenova – were part of the Kazakhstan team that won the silver medal at the 45th FIDE Chess Olympiad in Budapest in 2024. It was Kazakhstan’s best-ever result in the women’s competition.
The men’s team will consist of Daniyal Sapenov, Denis Makhnev, Zhandos Agmanov, Sauat Nurgaliyev and Aldiyar Ansat. Sapenov will make his debut at the Chess Olympiad, while the remaining players have previous international experience.
The 46th FIDE Chess Olympiad is one of the world’s largest team chess competitions. Players will compete in Open and Women’s sections over 11 rounds under the Swiss system. The event brings together national teams featuring many of the world’s leading players.
Kazakhstan enters the competition following a series of notable performances by its leading chess players.
Assaubayeva has been among the country’s most successful players in recent years. In June, she won the Norway Chess Women 2026 title in Oslo, defeating several leading players, including reigning Women’s World Chess Champion Ju Wenjun.
In July, Assaubayeva reached a career-high fifth place in the FIDE women’s world rankings with a rating of 2,538, entering the global top five for the first time.
Her rise adds to an already strong record. In December 2025, Assaubayeva won her third Women’s World Blitz Championship title and became Kazakhstan’s second female Grandmaster.
Other Kazakh players have also achieved success on the international stage. Kazybek Nogerbek became the 2024 FIDE World Junior Chess Champion, winning the title in Gandhinagar, India.
In August, four Kazakh chess players, all under 18, took a step toward earning higher titles. Seventeen-year-old Alikhan Daulet finished fourth at the Rudar GM Round Robin tournament in Serbia, earning an International Master norm.
Fifteen-year-old Elnaz Kaliakhmet won the second women’s prize at the 2026 Kanizsa Open and Hungarian Championship in Hungary, also earning an International Master norm. Meanwhile, 15-year-old Sauat Nurgaliyev finished second at the 27th Sants Open–Ciutat de Barcelona in Spain, securing his second Grandmaster norm.
At the same tournament in Barcelona, 16-year-old Malika Japparbekova won the second women’s prize and earned a Woman International Master norm.
The women’s team will also seek to build on its recent international experience, with several players having represented the country at major team competitions.
The upcoming Olympiad comes as chess continues to gain prominence in Kazakhstan, both through international results and the development of young players. Kazakhstan has increasingly hosted major international chess competitions, while its players regularly compete for medals at world and continental events. In August, Almaty hosted the inaugural FIDE World University Team Chess Championship bringing tems from the world’s leading universities, including Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge.
The Samarkand Olympiad will provide another opportunity for Kazakhstan’s teams to test themselves against the strongest chess nations and build on the women’s historic silver-medal finish in Budapest.
