Magnus Carlsen and other world leaders to miss Samarkand Olympics

Magnus Carlsen and other top chess players will not participate in the Olympiad in Samarkand.

World number one Magnus Carlsen and a number of other famous grandmasters have announced that they will not participate in the World Chess Olympiad to be held in Samarkand.

Magnus Carlsen officially confirmed that he will not participate in the competition as part of the Norwegian national team. Also, Aryan Tari and John Ludwig Hammer, who were included in the team list in the spring, have refused to participate in the tournament. As a result, the Norwegian national team, which was left without three leading chess players, fell to 21st place in the starting standings of the competition.

Not only the Norwegians, but also leading representatives of a number of other national teams will miss the prestigious tournament in Samarkand. The list of main losses in other national teams is as follows:

* **France**: Alireza Firuzja;

* **USA**: Hikaru Nakamura, Lenyer Dominguez;

* **Iran**: Parham Maghsudlu, Puya Idani;

* **Azerbaijan**: Teymur Rajabov;

* **England**: David Howell;

* **Poland**: Radoslav Wojtaszek;

* **Romania**: Kirill Shevchenko.

For your information, a total of 400 teams are expected to participate in the 2026 Olympics in Samarkand - 208 in the open tournament and 192 in the women's competition. This figure is an absolute new record in the history of the competition. The opening ceremony of the event will take place on September 15, and from September 16 to September 27, the participants will compete in 11 rounds according to the Swiss system under classical time control.