The premier World Youth U26 Team Championship was held in Mexico City, the same city to had hosted the Student Olympiad one year before. It brought attention of many World's top nations who sent very good players to Mexico. There were the Soviets, lead by GM duo, Beliavsky and Kochiev, then England with IM Mestel at top board. Cuba fielded a team with four titled players at top boards while USA had GM Christiansen and three IMs at their disposal. Those four were actually far ahead of the rest by means of rating predictions. Mexico were seeded fifth.

The pool of teams was split into five preliminary groups of 4 teams each, of which top two qualified for the championship final while the rest were relegated to play in the consolation group. There were no surprises in the qualifiers and all teams that were expected to qualify did their homework. The only interesting result to see was England dropping 1½ point vs Dominican Republic and losing badly to Colombia.

The finals started after one day of rest. As it happened, the top four teams immediately earned huge advantage over the rest making chase for medals a closed contest. England beat US on day two while the Americans held Cuba to a draw on the next day. USSR and England were in tied lead after five rounds with a minimum gap over Cuba. USA were clear 4 points behind. The sixth round turned out to be decisive. England stunningly beat USSR 3-1 with IM Taulbut defeating Mikhalchishin at board #3 in the best game of the match. Cuba hammered Scotland 4-0 to move into the lead though, but they lost 3-1 to the Soviets on the next day. With last round to go England were edging the Soviets by mere half of a point (because they did not do very well vs Brazil and Mexico losing some points here and there). Cuba were another fraction behind and yet to face the leaders. The Soviets played USA and went on for a four draw tie. England fought hard to finally deny Cuba and take gold medals. USSR came second, Cuba took bronze ahead of USA and Brazil. Mexico finished only in 8th. Dominican Republic won the consolation cup.

GMs Beliavsky and García of Cuba had best individual scores at top board (as it happened, those were best percentage scores overall too). England's leader Mestel scored impressive 8/12. Cuba might have good winning prospects had they only have more than four strong players in the team.