A volcanic trip – with the Lord of the rings
How World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand travelled to Sofia
Five countries, 2000 kilometres, about a million potholes, an unexpected ferry and the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. A report of a crazy road trip through Europe. – A team member reports
Months of careful planning for the chess world championship in Sofia by the Anand team were disrupted by a volcano in Iceland, located under Eyjafjallajökull, one of the smaller glaciers of the North Atlantic island. Tens of thousands of people were stranded on airports in Europe. One on them was Viswanathan Anand, who had travelled with his wife and manager Aruna from Madrid to Frankfurt on Thursday April 15th. They planned to continue their journey to Sofia on Friday April 16, together with three other travellers. Two more seconds were to fly from other airports in Europe to the Bulgarian capital on Friday to join the team there.
On Thursday April 15, Hans-Walter Schmitt and another helper of the Anand team flew to Sofia to prepare the arrival of the team Friday. The plan was good and well thought through. But then, on Friday, the bad news was that the ash cloud from Iceland had reached Frankfurt Airport and the airport had to be closed at 09.00 a.m. This meant that the planned flight to Sofia, LH3484, which was scheduled to depart at 10.05 a.m., was cancelled, just like hundreds of other flights…
Here is the full article.
Obviously chessbase favors Anand.
Nice to be able to follow the ins and outs of what’s happening. Thanks for posting this! It’s a super interesting article.
I was too young during Fischer-Spassky I, but this is certainly an interesting drama.
Question: since the Bulgarian PM and President are so involved, how do we know that the hotel rooms are not bugged?
Great article. I do hope they get to see the last hour of Return of the King on the way back.
Brilliant play on words SCUGRAD!