Wednesday 6 November 2019

Olympiad on the move?

A very recent announcement from the FIDE President indicates that the 2020 Chess Olympiad may not be in Khanty-Mansiysk as originally  announced. The whole event may be moved to Moscow, with the new created chess Para-Olympiad being held in K-M instead.
While some people seem to welcome this development, I confess to being dissapointed if the venue is changed. I quite like Khanty-Mansiysk, and have found the small city Olympiads (eg Bled) more social than those held in big cities. There is of course an extra travel leg (3 hours flying time from Moscow), but this isn't that onerous (especially for teams who have already spent 20+ hours in transit).
Hopefully there will be further announcements in the next few days, especially if the move necessitates a change of dates. While teams based in Europe can probably organise their travel quite easily, for the rest of us, planning trips like this have a greater lead time.

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