Grand Chess Tour confirms event allocations for 2020
Saint Louis, MO, February 18, 2020 – The Grand Chess Tour (GCT) is pleased to announce that all ten qualified players have confirmed their participation in the 2020 Tour and the event allocations have been finalized. The ten full tour participants will play in both the Superbet Chess Classic Romania in Bucharest in May and in the Sinquefield Cup in Saint Louis in September. In addition, they will each participate in two of the three rapid and blitz events as indicated below. The full tour players will be joined by three wildcard invitees at the events in Paris and Zagreb and by four wildcard invitees in Saint Louis. Details of the wildcards for each of the events will be released later. The sixth edition of the Grand Chess Tour (GCT) will feature five tournaments with the participants competing for a total prize fund of $1.275 million over the course of the season. The prize money on offer for two classical tournaments will be $325,000 per event while the prize fund for the rapid and blitz events will be $150,000 each. In addition, bonus prize fund totalling $175,000 will be awarded to the top three overall tour finishers.
Statement regarding the Chinese delegation for the Candidates tournament
Yesterday, the Russian Federation announced that the entry of travelers from the People’s Republic of China into their territory will be temporarily suspended, amid the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak. Effective tomorrow, February 20, the ban will affect Chinese citizens traveling for “private, educational, working and tourist purposes”. This ban does NOT affect official, business and humanitarian visas, which for now will continue to be issued. The Chinese delegation for the Candidates tournament has been issued a humanitarian visa, which englobes travels with sport, cultural or scientific purposes. As such, they should find no impediments entering the Russian Federation, but they have been advised to travel well in advance. The Chinese Chess Association had planned to send their delegation on March 1, but now they consider arriving even earlier. At the present time, it is not expected that the Chinese delegation should undergo a mandatory quarantine, but the situation changes by the hour, and each territory applies different measures. To be on the safe side, we are studying the possibility of offering the Chinese delegation to occupy a country house in the Moscow region upon arrival, with medical assistance at their disposal. This observation period will ensure that they will be able to continue their trip to Yekaterinburg without any issues, even if the security measures in the Sverdlovsk region are tightened in the forthcoming days. FIDE will do everything in our hands to minimize the inconveniences to the Chinese delegation under these exceptional circumstances. It must be noted that Wang Hao will be traveling to Russia directly from Japan, where he has been for the past few weeks.