Chennai, Feb 26 (IANS): Owing to the deteriorating geopolitical situation, the International Chess Federation or FIDE has decided to move the 44th Chess Olympiad and all other official competitions planned from Russia.
The other events that are moved away from Russia are the first chess Olympiad for People with Disabilities and the 93rd FIDE Congress, FIDE said.
This year, the Congress should also include an electoral procedure, since the first term of the current FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich is coming to an end. Dvorkovich was elected in Batumi (Georgia), in September 2018.
The decision was taken at FIDE's extraordinary meeting held on February 25.
The Chess Olympiad, in which teams from approximately 190 countries compete for two weeks, was supposed to take place in Moscow from July 26 to August 8.
FIDE is already working on finding alternative dates and locations for these events.