Led by national champion and International Woman Master (IWM) Vijayalakshmi Subburaman, who is just 19, the team has two more ambitious youngsters in Pallavi Shah, 19, and Swati Ghate, 18, both from Maharashtra.

Bhagyashree Thipsay, winner of five national titles and a seasoned International Woman Master (IWM) is the fourth member of the team.

Vijayalakshmi played in the Asian Junior championship in Iran, where she was the favourite but could only finish second.

The National A championship was held in Mumbai soon after the Asian Championship and she wanted to stay away initially. On second thoughts, Viji decided to play in the National and won the title after a gap of three years.

Viji has already gained two Woman Grandmaster norms and needs another to become India's first WGM. Her rating is already a WGM's and the Olympiad will be a good platformfor her to get to her first goal. Viji will be playing in the Olympiad for the first time.

National No 2 Pallavi Shah is an aggressive player and has already represented India in one Olympiad. Pallavi is an underrated player, though with her talent, she could have passed her first grading milestone much before. Anyway, she is likely to play on the second board in Elista and has the right field to go for her maiden International Woman Master norm.

India No 3 Bhagyashree could accumulate points on the bottom board with her rich experience. She came into the Indian team in mid-1980s and has been there since then. Probably, Bhagyashree is on the bottom board for the first time since her first or second appearance in the Olympiad when the Khadilkar sisters ruled the roost.

Swati Ghate is the fourth member but she could also get her chances to prove her calibre sometime during the Olympiad. Ever since she played in the World Junior championship in 1993, Swati has improved and won many titles in juniorchampionships in the country.

Only three games are played in a match in women's competition and Swati would get a chance to show her talent whenever the top players opt for a rest day.

M D Bhagwat of Maharashtra is the coach of the team.

The Indian women's team has a history of doing well when their men's team fared poorly.

Meanwhile, the 33rd Chess Olympiad received a mild jolt when Algeria decided to skip the event, citing the high accommodation fee being charged by the organisers, as reason.

The Algerian Youth and Sports Department announced the pull out saying they were forced to skip the tournament as accomodation in Elista will cost them $ 33,000, reports from Algires said today. Algeria finished 64th in a field of 120 in the 1994 edition. It also missed the last Olympiad in 1996.