ČEZ CHESS TROPHY 2018

Chinese-Indian under time pressure castling

[04.06.2018 00:00:00] - The grandmaster Ding Liren broke his hip while cycling and he had to withdraw from an ongoing tournament in Norway and unfortunately, he won´t be able to come to Prague. During the ČEZ CHESS TROPHY 2018 festival he will be replaced by the Indian second-best player, a grandmaster Pentala Harikrishna.

“We are pleased that we were able to find such a strong and attractive opponent for our Czech number one, despite such a short time notice.”, said the director of the festival, Pavel Matocha.

The grandmaster Pentala Harikrishna (32) was born in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh region, South India. He gained a chess grandmaster title at the age of fifteen and two years ago he even entered among the first ten best world players. He has competed for India in seven Olympic Games already. Currently he is the world 24. best chess player (ELO 2732).

Last Thursday, during his day off from the Norwegian tournament, the Chinese grandmaster Ding Liren went for a bike ride with his farther and in a sharp bend and in fast speed he unfortunately fell off his bike and broke his hip. Despite the fact, he refused to be taken to hospital, because he was due to take part - together with the other grandmasters- at a cooking competition. He, together with his team mate Viswanthan Anand, actually won the competition.
However, the same evening he had to go to hospital, as he was in a lot of pain. On Friday he undertook a surgery and on Saturday he officially announced that he will have to stay in bed for several weeks. We wish Ding Liren a speedy recovery and we believe that we will be able to welcome him in the Czech Republic on a different occasion.

| Pavel Matocha | visits(2815x)