Tell me, Grandmaster, how can a Western European Grandmaster lose to a Chinaman?
Dutch Grandmaster and author Jan Hein Donner thus asked Gudmundur Sigurjonsson, an Icelandic player, during the Chess Olympiad at Buenos Aires in 1978, after the latter lost to Qi Jingxuan. Donner was actually trying to console Sigurjonsson, but those weren’t probably the aptest of words to do it.
China defeated Iceland 3-1 in that match, in the opening round. That was quite a shock – for that time, that is.
