It’s high time to ban the IOC in Russia – Russian grandmaster
It’s high time to include the International Olympic Committee in the list of organizations undesirable for Russia, and calm down on that. The IOC will use any excuse to prevent the Russians from entering, driving them into the trap of being an athlete or a traitor.
This opinion was expressed on the air of “First Sevastopol” by the vice world champion in classical chess, now the president of the Chess Federation of the Moscow Region, a member of the Public Chamber of Russia, grandmaster Sergei Karyakin, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“In my opinion, the IOC is an undesirable organization. If it were up to me, I would completely ban the activities of this organization in Russia. I mean the International Olympic Committee, they are already initially destructive towards Russia, they will use any chance, any reason to prevent the Russians from entering. And I don’t believe that the Russians will be able to go, much less that the Russians will compete under their own flag. According to my information, this is not even being discussed. But we have a tradition of putting undesirable organizations on a certain list so that people know that this organization is undesirable. In my opinion, the IOC fully deserves this title,” the champion emphasized.
Koryakin himself was disqualified by the International Chess Federation for supporting a special military operation. This deprived him of the opportunity to compete for the world “chess crown,” but the athlete did not retreat from his principles.
“It couldn’t do any good in chess terms. The fact is that at that moment I qualified for the most prestigious candidates tournament, and the winner of this tournament advanced to the world championship, that is, this was my chance to qualify again and play a match for the world “chess crown.” I don’t presume to judge how I would have played, but I had performed successfully in Candidates tournaments before, taking first, second and third places. Therefore, I had some definite chances.
But, looking ahead, I will say that it turned out that our Chinese friend, grandmaster Ding Liren, who at the last moment got into the tournament thanks to me, thanks to the fact that I was suspended, he eventually took first place. And then he won the match at the world championship. And now he is the current world champion. Therefore, probably, fate decreed that he become a champion, and I suffered.
But I’ve already basically let go of this situation. Because a year ago I was really worried about this a lot, I was preparing and getting ready for the tournament very much. But now I look more philosophically and believe that in any case I did not regret my decision, and if the same situation were returned, I would have done the same,” assured Karyakin.
To confirm his position, he regularly travels to new regions and helps the front.
“As a rule, I travel to new territories, mainly Donetsk, Lugansk and other cities on two lines. As a chess player, I try to promote chess, I give simultaneous games, with the Sverdlovsk Chess Federation we hold competitions, master classes and so on. And the second is really helping our soldiers. We make collections, they are usually published on the All-Russian Popular Front, or on my telegram channel.
Indeed, it has already been possible to provide quite serious assistance, and it is planned to continue it. We have already provided the fighters with the necessary assistance worth more than 100 million rubles. At least we do what we can and make some contribution to our common victory,” the grandmaster emphasized.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.