Fridrik Olafsson

Friðrik Ólafsson (born 26 January 1935) is an Icelandic chess Grandmaster and former president of FIDE.

Friðrik was born in Reykjavík, Iceland. A first-time winner of the Icelandic Chess Championship in 1952 and of the Nordic Chess Championship a year later, he rapidly became recognised as the strongest Icelandic player of his generation. Friðrik's first result of international note was his shared first with Viktor Korchnoi at Hastings 1955–56.

Friðrik's best result in World Chess Championship competition was in the 1958 Interzonal tournament at Portorož, where he finished equal 5th–6th, automatically earning the grandmaster title and qualifying for the 1959 Candidates Tournament (the last stage to determine the challenger to the World Chess Champion) in 1960. In the event, held at Bled, Zagreb and Belgrade, however, he finished seventh of eight with 10/28. He also played in the following Interzonal (Stockholm 1962) but failed to qualify for the Candidates. Among his best tournament results were joint third in the first Piatigorsky Cup, Los Angeles 1963, with 7½/14 and shared first with Ljubomir Ljubojević at Wijk aan Zee 1976, ahead of Mikhail Tal.

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