14:07
April 19, 2017

Less than two months are left before the start of the FIDE World Team Championship and the FIDE Women’s World Team Championship, that will be held in Khanty-Mansiysk on June’16-28.

“Team Championships will be held in the Ugra Chess Academy, which has already become a traditional venue for chess tournaments with this number of participants, – says Valery Radchenko, the tournaments’ executive director. – At the moment a contract has been prepared and signed between FIDE and the executive directorate of the tournaments. The participants of each Team Championship include the previous event’s World Chess Team Champion, the three highest-placed teams in the FIDE Olympiad prior to the event, the four Continental Champions, a team from the organizing federation and a team nominated by FIDE President”.

Thus, in accordance with the rules of the World Chess Federation, representatives of China, USA, Ukraine, Russia, Egypt, India, Norway, Turkey and Poland will take part in the World Team Championship in Khanty-Mansiysk. Teams of Georgia, China, Poland, Ukraine, Egypt, Russia, India, USA and Vietnam will compete at the Women’s World Team Championship. One more team for each event will get wildcard from FIDE President and be announced later.

At the moment, the lineup of the majority of participating teams is already known. Thus, the entry forms of Russian national teams start with the names of Ian Nepomniachtchi and Alexandra Kosteniuk. The men’s team also includes Peter Svidler, Dmitry Jakovenko, Nikita Vitiugov and Ernesto Inarkiev. The women’s team includes Kateryna Lagno, Valentina Gunina, Natalija Pogonina and Olga Girya.

Among other participants of the tournaments are FIDE World Champion (2002-2004) Ruslan Ponomarev (Ukraine), European Rapid Chess Champion (2014) Jan-Krzysztof Duda (Poland), 14th Women’s World Champion Anna Ushenina (Ukraine), 15th Women’s World Champion Mariya Muzychuk, her sister, Women’s World Rapid Champion (2016) and Women’s World Blitz Champion (2014, 2016) Anna Muzychuk, Asian Women Chess Champion (2011) Harika Dronavalli, European Blitz Champion (2013) Anton Kolobov and other outstanding grandmasters.

Unfortunately, due to participation in the Paris Grand Chess Tour from July 21 to July 25, world champion Magnus Carlsen, former challenger for the chess crown Sergey Karjakin, as well as the strongest grandmasters playing for USA team Hikaru Nakamura, Wesley So and Fabiano Caruana will not come to Khanty-Mansiysk.

The teams participating in FIDE World Team Championships are made up of 4 players plus 1 reserve and 1 captain. Each tournament will be held on the Swiss system in 9 rounds. The time control: 90 minutes for 40 moves, 30 minutes to the end, and 30 seconds increment per move starting from move 1.

For the first time FIDE World Team Championship was held in 1985 in Lucerne, Switzerland. The winners were chess players representing the USSR. Women’s World Team Championship was first held in 2007 in Yekaterinburg, Russia. Chinese team got gold medals.

It should be noted that Women’s World Team Championship was held five times, but the Russians never managed to win: four times Russian team won silver, and once – bronze. In the men’s tournament, Russian players performed more successfully: twice they won as a part of the USSR national team and four times – representing team of Russia.

This year, for the first time in the history of the tournaments, they will be held at the same time and in the same place, previously the Men’s and Women’s World Team Championships were held separately.

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