World number one Magnus Carlsen has been disqualified from the World Rapid Championship in New York after refusing to change out of jeans, following a previous warning. The Norwegian grandmaster has also withdrawn from the World Blitz tournament, which begins on 30 December.
Fide, the World Chess Federation, issued a statement explaining the decision. Carlsen said: 'I said I’ll change tomorrow … but they said you have to change now, it became a matter of principle for me, so here we are! Honestly I’m too old at this point to care too much. If this is what they want to do I’ll probably set off to somewhere where the weather is a bit nicer.'
At the time of his default, Carlsen had scored 5/8 and was one and a half points behind the leaders, with little chance of retaining his title. After eight of 13 rounds, Jan-Krzysztof Duda (Poland), Arjun Erigaisi (India) and Alexander Grischuk (Russia) led on 6.5/8.
In the Women’s World Rapid, 15-year-old US star Alice Lee won all four of her opening games to lead, but lost to top seed and reigning world women’s champion Ju Wenjun of China in round five. After six rounds, Ju had 5.5/6, half a point ahead of Alexandra Kosteniuk (Switzerland) and Kateryna Lagno (Russia).
This is the first time the speed world championships have been held on American soil. The total prize fund is $1 million for the open Rapid and Blitz, with $428,500 for the women’s events. Rapid is 15 minutes per player per game plus 10 seconds per move, while Blitz is three minutes plus two seconds per move.
Carlsen, who has won five world rapids and seven world blitzes, captured both titles in 2022 and 2023. His 64 major titles underline the task ahead for new classical world champion Gukesh Dommaraju, who is not competing in New York.
