44th Chess Olympiad, Moscow

[Matt Bridgeman]

To many more articulated supporting statements like that and he might make Zelensky‘s s**t list for people who deserve being sanctioned.

[NickFaulks]

So this interview seems to boil down to ‘yes, I think this is a just war.’

Which particular part leads you there?

[Matt Bridgeman]

So this interview seems to boil down to ‘yes, I think this is a just war.’

Which particular part leads you there?

I don’t know Nick, kind of like all of it! Is it just coincidental in your mind he opens by talking about patriotism, brave soldiers and hating nazism? Echoing Putin very obviously. Whether that’s it from him now, who knows? Or perhaps he may want to clarify which opposite viewpoint he’s currently behind?

[John Foley]

Dvorkovich resigns as chairman of the Skolkovo Foundation. Source:

Arkady Dvorkovich leaves the post of head of the Skolkovo Foundation. This was reported by the press service of the fund in the Telegram channel. According to representatives of Skolkovo, now Dvorkovich will focus on the development of educational projects. Leaving his post, Dvorkovich thanked his colleagues.

Skolkovo has always been at the forefront of innovation in Russia, and today, I am sure, it will make every effort to build its own competitive economy in our country, becoming the main technology hub that will take over the provision of the country's technological needs,” he said.

As Dvorkovich concluded, the Skolkovo team and well-coordinated work will make it possible to cope with the ambitious task, achieving all the previously set goals. Dvorkovich has been in this post since 2018.

RBC sources said that Dvorkovich might be replaced by Igor Drozdov. Now he is the chairman of the board of Skolkovo.

Earlier, United Russia demanded that Dvorkovich be fired from Skolkovo. The reason for the resignation in the party was the condemnation in the Western media of the actions of the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine.

[John Foley]

Top ex-Kremlin official quits post after condemning Ukraine war. [Source]

Reuters implies he jumped before he was pushed.

Igor Shuvalov, chairman of the foundation's board of directors, said Dvorkovich had resigned, saying that he could no longer combine his duties at Skolkovo with his responsibilities at FIDE under the current circumstances.

[John Foley]

Igor Shuvalov has been sanctioned (asset freeze/travel ban) by the UK and others. His assets in the UK include two luxury apartments in central London worth an estimated £11 million. He is a core part of Putin’s inner circle, and headed up Russia’s bid for the 2018 Football World Cup. [source]

[NickFaulks]

I have had some difficulty locating the actual IOC statement, rather than quotes from it, but here it it is.

https://olympics.com/ioc/news/ioc-eb-re ... -officials

The key point, subsequently hedged a bit, is

"In order to protect the integrity of global sports competitions and for the safety of all the participants, the IOC EB recommends that International Sports Federations and sports event organisers not invite or allow the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes and officials in international competitions."

This leaves open the important question of what exactly is a "Russian athlete". Do they have to be someone with a Russian passport, or a Russian name, or perhaps who just looks Russian?

[Matt Bridgeman]

I have had some difficulty locating the actual IOC statement, rather than quotes from it, but here it it is.

https://olympics.com/ioc/news/ioc-eb-re ... -officials

The key point, subsequently hedged a bit, is

"In order to protect the integrity of global sports competitions and for the safety of all the participants, the IOC EB recommends that International Sports Federations and sports event organisers not invite or allow the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes and officials in international competitions."

This leaves open the important question of what exactly is a "Russian athlete". Do they have to be someone with a Russian passport, or a Russian name, or perhaps who just looks Russian?

Citizenship I’d imagine. Plenty of Russian’s will hold dual nationality and retain Russian passports as well as their new county’s. So I’d imagine permanent residency is the test. Visiting on a visa perhaps not.

[NickFaulks]

Citizenship I’d imagine.

But in FIDE's case, that would run foul of the remarkably broad 4.4 of the Charter.

"FIDE rejects any kind of discrimination against a country, private person or group
of people on account of race, skin colour, ethnic, national or social origin,
citizenship, birth, age, status, wealth, disability, language, religion, sex, gender
identity or expression, pregnancy, sexual orientation, political opinions, or any
other reason."

I know people will say that can be ignored when a Government does something really bad, but in that case there's not much point having it.

[Matt Bridgeman]

As an aside I'm curious about how the big city marathon's such as the London Marathon and will treat the sporting ban. They are obviously international events, and London had 42,000 finishers pre-Covid times in 2019. Most are similar to your average congress attendees - keen but obviously not professionals. Can the Russian fun runners compete or not? The Paris Marathon is next month. London is later in the year in October.

[MJMcCready]

I have had some difficulty locating the actual IOC statement, rather than quotes from it, but here it it is.

https://olympics.com/ioc/news/ioc-eb-re ... -officials

The key point, subsequently hedged a bit, is

"In order to protect the integrity of global sports competitions and for the safety of all the participants, the IOC EB recommends that International Sports Federations and sports event organisers not invite or allow the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes and officials in international competitions."

This leaves open the important question of what exactly is a "Russian athlete". Do they have to be someone with a Russian passport, or a Russian name, or perhaps who just looks Russian?

Why are they allowing politicians -and their agenda- to come before the interests of sportsmen and women? They can hardly be held accountable for the decisions of Putin and his crew but have to suffer nonetheless. If anything, shouldn't the decision of exclusion come from Russia itself (if they so wish to boycott certain sporting activities). I don't see what the sporting world has to gain from dragging politics into their arena.

[Gerard Killoran]

"We can confirm that the 44th Olympiad will be held in Chennai, India.

Excellent news, a wonderful part of the world.

Why have they never bid before?

So much for Kashmir, eh?

[NickFaulks]

So much for Kashmir, eh?

You could say the same about Ireland, possibly you would.

If you try hard enough, you can find a reason not to play chess anywhere.

[JustinHorton]

For sure, but this is why we need some kind of thinking in advance about such situations, no? Otherwise what routinely happens is that we ignore invasions or human rights abuses when it suits us and then when it does not, we scream about it and insist everybody agree with us - and then next time we go back to ignoring it. If a person behaved like this I think we would recognise it as an abusive cycle, and so it is with communities and institutions.

(In another thread I mentioned Donner's comments on playing in the 1978 Olympiad. It's not necessary to agree with him, I think, but it is helpful to observe that he did acknowledge the problem - when do we boycott or call for boycotts, when do we not - and attempt to address it.)

[NickFaulks]

There are really only two internally consistent positions.

1. You keep politics right out of sport - it exists solely to bring people together, not to keep them apart. Any individual or nation that cannot accept that doesn't play.

2. You abandon the concept of sport as a contest between nations.

As you will probably guess, I favour #1, but if that really is impossible we may as well go straight to #2. The big problem with that is obviously money.