Jakovenko to replace Svidler in Russian Olympiad team

Russian men’s team coach Yury Dokhoian has revealed that the Russian line-up for the 2012 Olympiad in Istanbul will comprise the strongest possible team in terms of ratings, except that no. 5 Peter Svidler has been replaced by no. 6 Dmitry Jakovenko.

Dokhoian was talking by telephone to Oleg Bogatov of R-Sport:

The preliminary team line-up has been decided. Those included are Vladimir Kramnik, Sergey Karjakin, Alexander Grischuk, Alexander Morozevich and Dmitry Jakovenko. I hope that will be the final line-up, and suspect any changes would come only as a result of force majeure circumstances.

The confirmed line-up at the official website

The change perhaps isn’t a great surprise given Svidler’s mixed results in team events for Russia, and criticism from coaches including in particular Evgeny Bareev after the 2010 Olympiad. Nevertheless, Svidler is the reigning Russian Champion and World Cup winner, and on the live rating list he’s up at 2749 in 13th place, while European Champion Jakovenko has dropped to 2722.2 and 26th place.

Jakovenko’s fall is largely due a disastrous Higher League where he failed to qualify for the Russian Championship, although a couple of days ago it was announced that he would still take part due to the absence of Vladimir Kramnik and Alexander Morozevich. Jakovenko somewhat redeemed himself in the recent Russia – China match, where he was the top performer:

Rank	Name	Score	Fed.	M/F	Rating	TPR	W-We	1	2	3	4	5
1	GM Jakovenko, Dmitry	3.5	RUS	M	2736	2841	+0.69	½	½	1	1	½
2	GM Wang, Hao	3.0	CHN	M	2739	2784	+0.31	½	½	1	½	½
3	GM Wang, Yue	3.0	CHN	M	2697	2784	+0.60	1	½	½	½	½
4	GM Tomashevsky, Evgeny	2.5	RUS	M	2733	2692	-0.28	0	½	½	1	½
5	GM Nepomniachtchi, Ian	2.5	RUS	M	2718	2692	-0.18	1	½	0	½	½
6	GM Vitiugov, Nikita	2.5	RUS	M	2703	2692	-0.08	1	½	½	½	0
7	GM Ding, Liren	2.5	CHN	M	2680	2712	+0.21	0	½	½	1	½
8	GM Matlakov, Maxim	2.5	RUS	M	2668	2692	+0.17	1	½	½	0	½
9	GM Li, Chao b	1.5	CHN	M	2687	2563	-0.84	0	½	½	0	½
10	GM Yu, Yangyi	1.5	CHN	M	2656	2563	-0.60	0	½	0	0	1

Yury Dokhoian was also asked about the competition at the Olympiad:

Who’ll be our main rivals? I would’t like to name any particular teams, as nowadays you can expect surprises from any team in the top 10, as was shown, for example, by last year’s European Championship. Few would have bet on the German team, but in the end they took first place.