The 39th Chess Olympiad, organized by the Fédération Internationale des Échecs and comprising an open and women's tournament, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, took place in 2010 in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, on September 19 to October 4. Russia has organized the Chess Olympiad three times previously: 1956 (Soviet Union), 1994 and 1998.

Ukraine won the team gold in the open section, while Russia won in the women's event. In individual competition, Emil Sutovsky of Israel, and Inna Gaponenko of Ukraine won the gold medals for best rating performance in both sections, respectively.

Six cities made the list with their bids to organize the Chess Olympiad 2010: Khanty-Mansiysk, Budva, Buenos Aires, Poznań, Riga, and Tallinn. The selection was part of the FIDE Congress held during the 37th Chess Olympiad in Turin in 2006.^{[citation needed]}

The main events in both competitions were held in indoor tennis courts, which opened in September 2008. With an area of 15,558 m², it hosted 3,500 chess fans.

The Chess Olympiad is a biennial chess tournament in which teams from all over the world compete against each other. The event is organised by FIDE, which selects the host nation.

The first Olympiad was unofficial. For the 1924 Olympics an attempt was made to include chess in the Olympic Games but this failed because of problems with distinguishing between amateur and professional players. While the 1924 Summer Olympics was taking place in Paris, the 1st unofficial Chess Olympiad also took place in Paris. FIDE was formed on Sunday, July 20, 1924, the closing day of the 1st unofficial Chess Olympiad.

FIDE organised the first Official Olympiad in 1927 which took place in London. The Olympiads were occasionally held annually and at irregular intervals until World War II; since 1950 they have been held regularly every two years.

Chess is a recognized sport by the International Olympic Committee with FIDE being the recognized International Sports Federation for chess since June 1999. As a member of the International Olympic Committee, FIDE adheres to its rules, including controversially having doping tests. The prospects of chess becoming an Olympic sporting event at some future date remain unclear. The naming of FIDE's team championship as the "Chess Olympiad" is of historical origin and implies no connection between this event and the Olympic Games.

Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen (born 30 November 1990) is a Norwegian chess Grandmaster and chess prodigy who is currently the number-one ranked player in the world. In January 2010 he became the seventh player in history to be ranked number one in the world on the official FIDE rating list. His peak rating is 2835, the second highest in history, after Garry Kasparov.

On 26 April 2004 Carlsen became a Grandmaster at the age of &1000000000000001300000013 years, &10000000000000148000000148 days, making him the third-youngest Grandmaster in history. On 1 January 2010 the new FIDE rating list was published, and at the age of &1000000000000001900000019 years, &1000000000000003200000032 days, he became the youngest chess player in history to be ranked world number one, breaking the record previously held by Vladimir Kramnik. Carlsen was also the 2009 World blitz chess champion.

His performance at the September–October 2009 Nanjing Pearl Spring tournament has been described as one of the greatest in history and lifted him to an Elo rating of 2801, making him the fifth player to achieve a rating over 2800 – and aged 18 years 10 months at the time, by far the youngest to do so.

Baadur Jobava (Georgian: ბაადურ ჯობავა; born November 26, 1983) is a Georgian chess grandmaster. His first major achievement on the international scene was winning the Dubai Open 2003 with 7/9. He took the gold medal at the 2004 36th Chess Olympiad, scoring 8½/10. He has taken part in the Olympiads 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010. In the latter, he defeated world's number one Magnus Carlsen in the Georgia-Norway match. He took part in the FIDE World Chess Championship 2004, but was knocked out in the first round by Ruben Felgaer. He won the Georgian Chess Championship in 2003 and 2007. He won the Second Samba Cup in Skanderborg, Denmark in 2005. 2006 was a good year for Jobava, winning the Railyaway Hotel Cup and the prestigious Aeroflot Open, the strongest open tournament in the world. In 2008 he tied for 1st–8th with Nigel Short, Vadim Milov, Aleksej Aleksandrov, Tamaz Gelashvili, Alexander Lastin, Gadir Guseinov and Farid Abbasov in the President's Cup in Baku. In August 2011 he tied for 1st–2nd with Hrant Melkumyan in the Lake Sevan tournament in Martuni and won the event on tie-break. In December 2011 he won the 32nd Edoardo Crespi Trophy in Milan with 8,5/9, finishing two points ahead of second placed Vladimir Malaniuk. In the same month Jobava won the European Rapid Chess Championship in Warszawa ahead of 746 players.

Alexei Dmitrievich Shirov (Russian: Алексей Дмитриевич Широв, Latvian: Aleksejs Širovs; born July 4, 1972) is a Soviet-born Latvian chess grandmaster. He has consistently ranked among the world's top players since the early 1990s, and reached a ranking as high as number four in 1998. Shirov is also a well-regarded chess author.

Shirov became the World Champion (under 16) in 1988, the World Under-20 Vice-Champion in 1990 (second on tiebreaks to Ilya Gurevich), and achieved the title of Grandmaster in 1990. Shirov is the winner of numerous international tournaments: Biel 1991, Madrid 1997 (shared first place with Veselin Topalov), Ter Apel 1997, Monte Carlo 1998, Mérida 2000, two time winner of the Paul Keres Memorial International Chess Tournament in Tallinn, Estonia, with victories in 2004 and 2005 just to name a few. He won the 2005 Canadian Open Chess Championship.

In 1998 Shirov's ranking rose to number four in the world. On the basis of his rating, he was invited to play a ten game match against Vladimir Kramnik to select a challenger for World Champion Garry Kasparov. Shirov won the match with two wins, no losses and seven draws. However the plans for the Kasparov match fell through when sufficient financial backing could not be found. When Kasparov instead played Kramnik for the world title in 2000, Shirov maintained that the match was invalid and he was the rightful challenger.