Hungary puts on a show at the Budapest Chess Olympiad with the youngest grandmaster in its history, who represented Romania for two years!

Hungary has an excellent performance at the Budapest Chess Olympiad with the youngest grandmaster in its history, who represented Romania for two years.

In the 4th round of the Budapest Chess Olympiad, the Hungarian team prevailed over the Italian team, score 2.5:1.5.

Hungary puts on a show at the Chess Olympiad in Budapest

One of the members of the Hungarian team is none other than Richard Rapport, who represented Romania for two years. He prevailed over the Italian Daniele Vocaturo.

Aged 28, Richard Rapport is the youngest grandmaster from the history of the Hungarian national team.

Between 2022 and 2023, Richard Rapport played for the Romanian team. He chose to cross the “border” because he did not feel important to his native country, as he himself revealed in an interview.

But in the spring of this year, the famous chess player he took everyone by surprise when he decided to return to the Hungarian team.

“A long-awaited moment has arrived in my life. I am very happy to be here. For a long time I felt that I was not important to my native country. Now they seem to have found value in me, which I’m happy about,” said Richard Rapport, for telex.hu.

What Richard Rapport said when he represented Romania

“I am excited to represent Romania, unfortunately I don’t spend as much time in Bucharest as I would like because I travel a lot. My life as a chess player is represented by travel. But it was really a big change for me to move here and I can only thank everyone because I feel at home here. People are friendly here, I was well received, it’s a change for me, a change for the better”, said Richard Rapport, in May of last year, when he was still performing under the Romanian flag.