Calvia Mania begins! Bigwig preview

It's no more than 10 weeks until the start of the 36th Chess Olympiad held in Calvià, Spain. It is high time we focused entirely on the forthcoming event. We promise to do our best to provide you with most complete historical coverage of 1976-2002 period before Calvia take-off (however you can never know, if you can help, then do help). Who is going to take the Gold? Who is able to reach the medal zone? The July ELO ranking list is already at our disposal at
www.fide.com. Here is the top 6 according to average ELO of top ten of each nation:
| team | ELO | top players |
| 1. Russia | 2721 | Kasparov 2817, Kramnik 2770, Morozevich 2743, Svidler 2727 |
| 2. Ukraine | 2632 | Ponomariov 2722, Ivanchuk 2715, Moiseenko 2640, Volokitin 2638 |
| 3. Hungary | 2624 | Leko 2741, Polgar 2728, Almasi 2644, Gyimesi 2618 |
| 4. USA | 2610 | Onischuk 2655, Seirawan 2631, Goldin 2624, Kaidanov 2621 |
| 5. England | 2609 | Adams 2738, Short 2684, McShane 2643, Sadler 2617 |
| 6. France | 2608 | Bacrot 2712, Lautier 2666, Fressinet 2637, Tkachiev 2615 |
Russia seem to be favourites but who of the world's top players is going to visit Calvia? There will certainly be some major absentees like Kramnik and Anand. Who else?
Discuss at our forum , answer the poll question there and share your opinion with other users. Bet your dark horses, scorn the favourites. Who the Peonin, the Calvia mascot, will be lucky for? Is anyone able to predict top three?