 The United States were the second strongest team with three top ten players, Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura and Wesley So, along with Ray Robson and Samuel Shankland.So and Shankland had proved prior to the Olympiad that they were in good form after winning the Sinquefield Cup 2016 and the Biel Chess Festival 2016, respectively.The defending champions China were the third team with highest average rating and the only team besides Russia whose all players had rating higher than 2700.