We have all been told time after time just how great the Soviets were at chess and having read almost every publication translated into English about them, I have more than a few ideas why. The following list shows how dominant the Soviet players were at the Olympiads they played in, but bear in mind for political reasons the Soviets only began participating from the 1950s onwards.
Courtesy of the English Chess Forum here is the list of players who beat a Soviet at the Olympiads.
Barcza
Byrne
Duckstein
Ftacnik
Georgiev
Gligoric
Hubner
Kasimdzhanov
Ljubojevic (twice)
Miles
Nakamura
Padevsky
Penrose
Pfelger
Quinteros
Seirawan (twice)
Smejkal
Topalov
Uhlmann
Unzicker
Vallejo Pons
23 losses in total -scary!
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