"my remark about the rating advantage on the lower boards “helping” Russia referred to the draw on board 3 – it is speculation, but maybe Illescas would have declined Jakovenko’s early draw offer if not for the significant rating gap?"

OK, I get it, probably right, I didn't look at Jakovenko's game until now but it does seem as if he is clearly worse when they agreed to the draw and he would definitely have played on if the colours were reversed.

If it wasn't clear, my remark about the rating advantage on the lower boards "helping" Russia referred to the draw on board 3 - it is speculation, but maybe Illescas would have declined Jakovenko's early draw offer if not for the significant rating gap? To me it seems that he was at least slightly better in the final position (but of course I may be wrong).

About board 4: I do not really understand this particular line of the French (or even the French in general) ... . Alekseev didn't find a proper answer to Salgado's simple plan of h2-h4-h5-h6-h7 - has this been tried before, is there an at least equalizing antidote? I don't think he blundered which could be attributed to nerves - his piece sacrifice was probably more desperation looking for a non-existing perpetual check. And while Alekseev was unbeaten before, he also couldn't win against 2600-2700 players in four consecutive rounds - so his last-round game wasn't that unique?

BTW, we have to go back "just four years" to the 2005 European Team Championship for similar last-round results by Russian players. Sweden-Russia 2-2 included Berg(2539) - Bareev(2688) 1-0 and Hillarp Persson(2511) - Timofeev(2661) 1-0. True, their tournament then was already "gone" before: after earlier losses against France, the Netherlands and Hungary the top seed ended up in 14th place.

But today, everything would still have been OK for Russia [and, referring to the Dresden Olympiad, history would have repeated itself] if Stellwagen had held his (apparently drawn) rook ending against Gashimov ... .

*Bartel not Martel...

Oops, thx, corrected.

The Azeri women did well too, in spite of only having players in the 2200s. They were clearly outrated in every match, and still they came an inch from a medal, same points as Ukraine and same first tiebreak. They missed out on the bronze on the second tiebreak. All five Ukrainan women were well over 2400, all the Azeris were in the 2200s, four of them 2233 or lower.

"Maybe the rating advantage against Spain on boards 3 and 4 helped Russia to score 0.5/2"

I don't think Alekseev's being 170 points higher rated helped his opponent, but sensations do happen and this one probabaly had much to do with nerves. Alekseev was undefeated before the last round while Lopez only had played one opponent over 2519 and then lost (with white against Petrosian, 2602). Alekseev is 2725 and won't sleep well tonight, I don't recall a Russian top player ever losing an event deciding last round team game to a that much lower rated player ever before. But nice that Azerbaijan won, I hoped they would do that and they can thank Gashimov and Mamedyarov, while Radjabov has been unusually pale, and Guseinov didn't impress either.

Maybe the rating advantage against Spain on boards 3 and 4 helped Russia to score 0.5/2 - I do not quite understand the 15 move draw in Jakovenko-Illescas (respect for the higher-rated player?). Forget about past results, in this very tournament Illescas Cordoba and Salgado Lopez had ~50 points higher performance ratings than Alekseev and Jakovenko ... .

Currently, first place - as well as the final result of the Dutch team - depends on whether Stellwagen can hold a rook ending a pawn down against Gashimov.

He left for Bulgaria.

anyone knows whether topalov left serbia, or he simply keeps walking around since round 7?

Good to see that "my" Dutch team is still doing so well. Such a shame that Smeets could not win his game. Did he miss a win somewhere?

Looks like the top three will follow the ratings exactly in both competitions, Russia-Azerbaijan-Armenia among the men, and Russia-Georgia-Ukraine among the women. Russia's men will surely beat Spain thanks to board 3-4, where they are more than 150 points up. One win there and the rest draws will be enough.

Russia already faced Spain in the last round of the Dresden Olympiad 2008 and was actually a bit lucky to reach a 2-2 - some Spanish players had conceded draws in favorable positions. A victory would have given Russia the bronze medal after an overall disappointing tournament.

Azerbaijan had played the Netherlands in an earlier round, the result was also 2-2. But this time the Dutch team doesn't have van Wely, who had beaten Radjabov's KID at the time.

I'm putting my money on Russia because of their superior tie-break.