OLYMPIAD: RESULTS MAY BE REVIEWED
[12:38 pm] 02 December, 2008
The results of the recent World Chess Olympiad in Dresden may be reviewed.
Leading chess player of Ukraine Vasili Ivanchuk refused to move on to a doping test after the 11th round. As a result, the renowned grosmeister may be disqualified for 2 years and Ukraine may lose the Gaprindashvili cup, which was given after the counting of the results of the Ukrainian men and women chess players.
Based on these results, Ukraine was in first place and Armenia came in second because the men’s team placed 1st, while the women placed 6th. If Ukraine is disqualified, Armenia will place first with the total of men’s and women’s results.
The president of FIDE Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has personally made an announcement regarding the possible disqualification of Ukraine.
Source: http://www.a1plus.am/
The drug tests are silly anyway. Ivanchuk made a wise decision in my opinion.
Someone needs to test Kirsan for drugs. You’ll be surprised how much ganja the dude has in him.
You can’t complain about the rules when you already broke them (no matter how silly they are). You have to complain when those rules are announced for the first time. And NOBODY complained about doping test when they were announced for the first time.
So bye, bye Ivanchuk. See you in 2 years.
Ivanchuk is not all there in the head, he never was. You can’t expect him to follow your rules when he’s in an emotional state after losing a key game. They can ban him all they want. He’ll still be invited everywhere and other big players will be pissed at FIDE for trying to kick out one of their best opponents.
“Jon said…
The drug tests are silly anyway. Ivanchuk made a wise decision in my opinion.”
Getting all your games thrown out to avoid taking a test that doesn’t really matter anyway was a wise decision?
You’re going to have to run that one by me again. Makes no sense.
Of course Chucky isn’t doped. But he didn’t follow the FIDE doping rules, and for that is facing a 2 year ban from FIDE chess tournaments. He is in the probably best form of his life, and will be stopped from showing it!
We will surely see a lot of player protesting if FIDE lets this happen. Maybe other top players will also not appear on doping tests? That will be very bad for FIDE, since then players will choose non-FIDE tournaments instead.
No matter how stupid this rule sounds, everyone knows it’s a rule and there have been no previous problems. Now that someone finally broke the rule you can’t go back and change it.
Did anyone protest the rule when it was enacted?
Unfortunately Chucky should be banned, and whatever they decide about the Olympiad should be up to FIDE.
The rule is stupid for chess, but FIDE wants chess to become an Olympic sport, so this is the path they’ve chosen. You can’t just pick and choose which rules you’d like to follow.
Have FIDE vote and repeal the rule, petition it, do whatever…that shouldn’t change the fact that it’s a rule now and was at the time of the Olympiad.
I’m also from the US and think it would suck for us to lose the Bronze, but I also think all rules should apply to everyone equally, not just to benefit someone.
Let’s say for example that maybe Chucky was taking some drug to heighten awareness, or increase his cognitive ability? There is no way now to prove that this is or was the case.
People argue that drug testing in chess is stupid. No being banned for smoking Marijuana or taking codine(drugs that in all likelyhood would impair thinking) would be stupid, but that’s still the rules.
Contrary to popular belief there are drugs out there that can help a person concentrate for longer periods, or help them focus better, and these could help in a game of chess.
So FIDE might ban Ivanchuk for 2 years for breaking a FIDE rule.
How about FIDE being banned for 2 years for breaking their own rules (changing the World Championship system yet again, thus breaking contracts)?
After all, a rule is a rule and MUST be followed, no matter how stupid it is, according to some.
Why shouldn’t such penalties be applied to FIDE itself? If they were, FIDE would be banned FOR LIFE, they’ve broken their own rules so often.
Then we would really be getting somewhere!
FIDE is a joke and has always been a joke. Kasparov had the right idea. The top players should boycott all FIDE events if Ivanchuk is banned. Why do you chessplayers put up with these manipulators? Get a backbone and say finis to FIDE!
Chucky didn’t want to take the drug test for fear there would be a low amount of blood showing up in his alcohol level.
All Chucky needs is a bottle label on his butt and he’s an immediate advertisment for Smirnoff Vodka.
Somebody call AA for the guy. His liver must be the size of an apricot.
some comments are realy stupid
By the way, we’re not born with a computer chip in our brains that says “you must obey the rules”. If everybody always obeyed rules, there would’ve never been an American Revolution, for example. The point about rules is: WHOSE rules are they, and do we respect the entity that’s establishing them?
As an amateur chess player in France, I think the French Chess Federation does a really good job and therefore I see no reason to disrespect their rules. But if I were a professional player like Shirov, Morozevich or Ivanchuk, for example, I’m not sure I’d be happy with the way FIDE deals with some of the regulation issues. What about this last change in the WC cycle’s rules? For a fan like me, the idea of having a Candidates’ Tournament again is great, but how come they can change the rules in the midst of this (long-term) competition?
Coming back to doping issues, it all clearly comes down to FIDE trying to get chess to become an Olympic sport. But do the players agree with it? I don’t know if they were given a voice in the process of decision of FIDE priorities, but if they feel they’re misrepresented, I think they should protest. There are, of course, risks involved, but maybe this will force a needed debate.
On Ivanchuk’s case, I’d like to hear what he has to say about it, but it doesn’t look like a political decision on his part, at least not in the moment. But what is clear is that a compromise needs to be reached. A two-year ban of the most passionate and entertaining super-grandmaster of the circuit is only going to do harm to everyone involved (FIDE Board included) and to chess itself.
Anyway, that’s just my opinion.
Bruno
Yes, the players can and should protest about the rules they don’t like, but where were they when FIDE introduced it’s intention to become Olympic spoort and announced doping tests for the first time?
It’s not from yesterday, that chess wants to become Olympic sport. The efforts go back 10 years! Where and when did ANY of the players express dissatisfaction about that???
When you get caught it is too late to protest about the rules. Thats just hipocrisy.
I’ve yet to see any comments from Chucky about protesting the drugs testing. So I’m not sure why people keep saying that he can’t protest it after the fact because thats hypocritical.
And the rule might be 10 years old, but if you’ve payed attention to Chucky you’ll see that he doesn’t remember rules that were read to him on that same day. For example in the Bilbao tournament he forgot that time controls didn’t add seconds to his clock TWICE. And thats all the more ironic considering that Ivanchuk was the one who originally suggested those time controls to Kirsan Ilyumzhinov.
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Jon said…
The drug tests are silly anyway. Ivanchuk made a wise decision in my opinion.
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Oh yeah, a VERY wise decision to jeopardize his career over something that doesn’t matter anyway. Wisdom like that doesn’t grow on trees.
Of course Ilyumzhinov is a murderer and a criminal. In principal I agree that rules are rules. It seems to me however that rules should be applied with wisdom (because they can sometimes lead to injustice, as in this case). And the rules hould also be applied to Ilyumzhinov (does Kalmukkia have the death sentence for murderers?).
“Of course Ilyumzhinov is a murderer and a criminal.”
And where is the proof for these allegations? In what court has he been convicted for those crimes?
Or is it just true because you say so?
I think there might be truth in it- but corruption rules there so those in power don’t get convicted.
And I guess you have been there and experienced corruption first hand, right?