The Malaysian Chess Federation (MCF) organised the World Youth Olympiad (U16), which was on that year open to players born in 1986 or later. Some nations fielded two teams (China, Singapore, Hong Kong) and some three (Australia, Malaysia). Following the last-minute withdrawal of Zambia, Malaysia has added a fourth team in order to even out the numbers. The tournament was declared open by Kirsan Ilumzhinov. Following a speech to the assembled players and officials, Ilumzhinov made a symbolic first move (e4) on an extremely large chess set installed in the centre of the hall.

Second seeds China "A" took clear first on the back of an 85% score on board 1 by Wang Yue and an 80% score on board 2 by Zhao Jun. Top seeds the Ukraine finished second but could be said to have underperformed with IM Areshchenko scoring only 60% on board 1 and future GM Karjakin losing a lot of points on board 2 with a 75% (performance rating of about 2373) score. Seventh seeds Indonesia took third place and fourth seeds India finished 4th. Overperformances were achieved by 11th seeds Uzbekistan (5th) and 17th seeds Singapore (9th). 5th Seeds England (13th) and 3rd seeds Romania (6th) performed less well.