The use of the name "Chess Olympiad" for FIDE's team championship is of historical origin and is not connected to the Olympic Games.

[1] As a sporting federation recognized by the IOC, and particularly as a signatory to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) conventions,[3] FIDE adheres to their rules, including a requirement for doping tests,[4][5] which they are obligated to take at the events such as the Olympiad.

[7] Players such as Artur Yusupov,[8] Jan Timman[9] and Robert Hübner[10] either refused to play for their national team or to participate in events such as the Chess Olympiad where drug tests were administered.

[11] However, in the 36th Chess Olympiad in 2004, two players refused to provide urine samples and had their scores cancelled.

[12][13] Four years later, Vasyl Ivanchuk was not penalized for skipping a drug test at the 38th Chess Olympiad in 2008, with a procedural error being indicated instead.

[15] In November 2015, FIDE president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov announced they are working with WADA to define and identify doping in chess.

‡ Russia and India were subsequently declared joint winners after several Indian team members experienced connectivity issues due to a global outage of Cloudflare servers in 2020 Online Chess Olympiad.

However, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, FIDE made a statement in February 2022 that the tournament will not take place in Russia and will be shifted to Chennai, India.

The table shows players who have won at least 7 team medals in total at the Chess Olympiads.