Elena left her homeland because of love.
The USSR women’s team approached the next Chess Olympiad in 1988 in the status of an unequivocal, uncontested favorite. At that time, the Soviet team had missed winning the tournament just once in thirty years, and that only because they once boycotted it for political reasons.
The girls confidently went to gold this time as well, but at the last moment of the map they were confused by an unexpected incident. One of the stars of the team fled to the United States right in the middle of the competition.
Elena secretly loved an American colleague.
The main star of the Olympics
The composition of the USSR national team before the trip to Thessaloniki practically did not differ from the one that represented the country at the tournament in the last 10-15 years. The team was headed by the world champion Maya Chiburdanidze, who has already become a living legend. Side by side with her were Irina Levitina, the main old-timer of the team, who won her first Olympic gold back in 1972, and the debutant of the competition, Marta Litinskaya.
The fourth member of the team was Elena Akhmylovskaya. The chess player never won the USSR championship, but she was already well known on the international arena: two years before that, together with the national team of the Soviet Union, she won the eleventh Olympic title in Dubai for the national team. In the same year, the girl lost to Chiburdanidze in the world championship match in Georgia, where the Russian athlete did not have a single fan.
However, in Greece, it was Akhmylovskaya who turned out to be the main star of the team. Due to her, the USSR national team managed to bypass Hungary, which made a real breakthrough in the tournament. The country brought three Polgar sisters to the tournament, who later grew into world chess stars.
Elena Akhmylovskaya / Photo: © RIA Novosti / Mishchenko
Having lost to the Hungarians at the beginning of the tournament, thanks to the efforts of Akhmylovskaya, the USSR national team nevertheless regained first place in the 10th round. There were four more confrontations ahead of the team, and the gap from the competitors was one and a half points – a decent distance, but it was impossible to lose concentration.
“I chose personal happiness”
The team was suddenly deprived of the chances for gold by the same Akhmylovskaya, who in an absolutely unprecedented way substituted her colleagues right in the middle of the tournament. Elena, secretly in love with the coach of the US national team, John Donaldson, on the eve of the next match, officially married him at the country’s embassy, and the next morning … left Greece on the first plane, going straight to America.
The act of the chess player was an absolute shock for the team. The sports leadership of the USSR was also beside himself, despite the warming of relations with the United States. The KGB agents immediately began to interrogate the rest of the athletes, and the officials already wanted to demand that the International Chess Federation (FIDE) disqualify Akhmylovskaya, but in the end no repressive measures were taken against her.
– There was no politics or desperate dissidence in my step, but perestroika had just begun in the USSR at that time, and there was a very real danger that, because of my connection with an American, they would make me restricted to travel abroad and separated from my loved one. It was a pity for the team, I objectively let it down, but sometimes you have to make a difficult choice. I chose personal happiness, ”the athlete later admitted.
Hungarian sensation
The national team at that tournament did not manage to recover from the loss of a key member of the team. Already in the next round, the Soviet chess players lost points, allowing the Hungarians to come close to themselves, and by the time the decisive match began, the competitors had already completely equaled in points.
Elena Akhmylovskaya / Photo: © RIA Novosti / V. Levitin
In the last round, the USSR national team frankly crumbled. In the confrontation with the Netherlands, whose team was quoted at that time incomparably lower, all Soviet chess players unexpectedly drew. Rivals from Hungary took advantage of this weakness to win the first Olympic gold in the history of the country.
At the awards ceremony, the Greek fans applauded the heroines of the tournament, while the vice-champions came for medals as if they were at a funeral. Two years later, the renewed team also failed to take revenge on Hungary: the gold of the 1986 Olympics remained the last in the history of the USSR women’s team.
The fateful marriage of Akhmylovskaya and Donaldson did not last long. Just two years later, the couple divorced, and Elena married Georgy Orlov, another Russian chess player who emigrated to the United States. A few years later, she completely ended her sports career, focusing on her family and coaching. Krasnoyarsk, where most of the life of a chess player, Akhmylovskaya visited for the last time in 2003. The famous athlete died at just 55 years old.
2023-08-20 13:47:50
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