Carlsen cleans up at sports gala
January 5, 2014
Norwegian chess world champion, 23-year-old Magnus Carlsen silenced critics of the game’s status as a sport when he dominated the country’s annual Sports Gala (Idrettsgallaen) on Saturday night. While he controversially wasn’t eligible for athlete of the year, Carlsen took out the award in every category he was nominated.
Carlsen took home the trophies for the Name of the Year (Årets navn) and the Open Class (Åpen klasse) reported Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK), while he shared the top sporting personalities’ peer-nominated “utøvernes pris” with golfing star Suzann Pettersen.
The national athletics federation (Norges Idrettsforbund) sparked outrage last month when it refused to nominate Carlsen for the male athlete of the year category. Carlsen couldn’t be named top athlete, the federation argued, because Norway’s chess league (Norges Sjakkforbund) and the players it represents aren’t part of the athletics association.
Norway’s prime minister even entered the debate, when she congratulated the chess prodigy on sweeping the prize pool. “Although it’s debatable whether chess is a sport or not, I believe Magnus’ performance at the chess world cup is at least on a par with other sporting performances,” Erna Solberg told NRK.
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Nakamura will beat him in 2014 for the World Championship.