The main surprise of round 1 was that Leader lost to Sano. The key match between Shaman and Nakajima took place in round 2, and Shaman won. Meanwhile the host country was doing very well. Four-times Italian champion Francesco Marconi moved on to 4/4 when he beat Aoki in the fourth round. And 1997 Italian champion Andrea Silvola joined him as joint leader with wins over Caspard and Shaman.

Marconi beat his compatriot to move into sole lead at the end of round 5. However, he then fell away, losing four games in a row. Jan-Kristian Haugland of Norway was establishing himself as the real dark horse of the tournament, and he beat Shaman in round 5.

By the end of round 7, Haugland and Silvola were second equal with 5½, but Aoki had moved into the sole lead with 6 by beating Nakajima. By beating Shaman in round 9, Aoki went a full point clear on 8; Nakajima then had 7 and Haugland was third on 6½.

In round 10, Haugland beat Aoki and so it was close again at the top. After Leader beat Haugland in round 12, the top placings were Aoki and Nakajima on 10, Shaman 9, Haugland 8½, with Leader and Marconi on 8. So Aoki and Nakajima were definitely in the semi-finals with the others fighting for the other two places.

In the last round, Leader was playing Shaman. If he won, he was likely to be in at least a play-off for a semi-final place. Meanwhile, Marconi won his game, and so he was also in at least a play-off unless both Haugland and Shaman won their games. Marconi came over to watch Shaman v Leader and it was clear that Leader was way way ahead. But then Leader made three absolutely awful moves and lost. Haugland also won his game, and so poor Marconi missed out on a chance of a semi-final place.

The full results at the end of the Swiss section of the tournament were:

The final column of the table shows the "Brightwell Quotient" (BQ). This is used as a tiebreaker, and it is calculated from a combination of the strength of opposition and the margin of victory in each game.

It was not unexpected to see Nakajima, Shaman and Aoki in the semi-finals. However, Haugland's excellent performance came as a surprise to many. He had played amazingly well, beating Aoki, Caspard and Shaman.

The end of the Swiss section also marked the end of the team championship. The team tournament had in the past been dominated by 3 countries - the UK who had won 5 times, the USA with 4 wins, and France with 3. However, this year none of these previous champions could manage better than third place. The team scores were:

Despite their tremendous record in the individual championships, Japan had never won the team event before! The main reason is that the Japanese team has not consisted of the three best players. It has been more usual for the Japanese to send junior and women's champions to the event along with their national champion.