Both the Vietnamese men's and women's teams fell in rankings in the third round of the Chess Olympiad in Tromso, Norway, yesterday.

The men's team, who have an average Elo of 2558, were confident of facing Switzerland who have an average Elo of 2493, after winning the first and second round. However, the team tied with Switzerland 2-2 and dropped 10 places from sixth to 18th out of 150 teams.

On the first board, International Grandmaster Le Quang Liem (Elo 2710) tied with Pelletier Yannick (Elo 2578) after 56 moves, while Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son (Elo 2634) defeated Joseph Gallagher (ELo 2437) on the second board with 57 moves.

Nguyen Duc Hoa (Elo 2510) drew with Hug Wegner (Elo 2474) on the third board, and Nguyen Van Huy (Elo 2493) lost to Oliver Kurmann (Elo 2423) on the fourth board.

On the women's side, Armenia beat Viet Nam 3-1.

With this loss, Viet Nam dropped 10 places to 25th out of 136 teams.

The male players will meet Paraguay, and the female players play Malaysia in the next round.

VNS/VNN