India to bid to host this year’s Chess Olympiad

Chennai: The All India Chess Federation (AICF) will be bidding to host the 44th edition of the Chess Olympiad later this year after the event was moved out of Russia, a senior official of the body said on Saturday.

“Yeah, we are bidding for the chess Olympiad this year. The budget for the event would be USD 10 million (about Rs 75 crore),” AICF secretary Bharat Singh Chauhan told PTI.

The Chess Olympiad is a biennial team event, in which teams from some 190 countries compete for honours over a two-week period.

The chess Olympiad 2022 was supposed to take place in Moscow from July 26 July to August 8.

However, on Friday, FIDE (the International Chess Federation) decided to move the Chess Olympiad and all other official competitions planned from Russia in the wake of the country’s invasion of neighbouring Ukraine.

The other events that are moved away from Russia are the first chess Olympiad for people with disabilities and the 93rd FIDE Congress.

FIDE is said to be already working on finding alternative dates and locations for these events.

If India gets the nod to host the Olympiad, it would be the second major world event to be held in the country after the World Championship match in 2013 between Viswanathan Anand and Magnus Carlsen, the current world No.1.