Someone please explain what Sam Shankland said at the end of the video

He said something along the lines that if he had played against a 1600 foreigner and won he would have received a GM norm. This is correct or is my English just failing me?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF22DgfXF1M&feature=related

Yes, he said that,  but probably he played a stronger opponent and lost, that´s why he´s a IM...

Though really a pity, bad luck!

What i mean to say is that i want more info on that topic... how can beating a 1600 foreigner grant someone a GM norm?

Well, if you´ve got a rating of 2498, and you beat a 1600s, you may get "4 points" for that - however this is going different at OTB tourneys... - which gives you the 2502-rating, and you´re a GM when you´ve got > 2500 ELO rating points...

In order to obtain a GM norm, one has to fulfil several conditions. You have to score well enough against strong enough opposition, of course.

But in addition, in that tournament, a certain minimum number of your opponents have to be foreigners (from a different country) because the FIDE GM title is an international title, so the games you need for a GM norm have to include enough games against "international" opponents.

And of course, it is really a pity when one has played a great tournament, clearly scoring enough points for a GM norm against great opponents, just in order to notice, when seeing the last round pairing, that it has not been possible for the tournament organizer to provide you with the necessary number of players from a different country, so that your great result will not be counted as a GM norm just because of that reason.

Here are some details on the current FIDE GM title requirements:

http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=57&view=article

http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=58&view=article

In the second link, there is this:

1.44a:  A maximum of 3/5 of the opponents may come from the applicant's federation and a maximum of 2/3 of the opponents from one federation. For exact numbers see the table in 1.7.

Here's a page summarizing those rather lengthy requirements:

http://www.chessclub.com/help/norm