You may have noticed that Ian Nepomniachtchi may have played the world chess championship under a not Russian flag. That has to do with the doping ban placed upon the Russian sport federation as a fallout of contravention of the World anti-doping agency (WADA).
The Russian sports federation got entangled in the mix of conspiracy covering up some of their athletes, which led to a pronounced ban by the agency that upheld sports arbitration court. This injunction excluded Russia from participating in any sporting event under the auspices of Russia’s federation name, flag, or anthem.
This decision almost forestalled the present ongoing chess duel between the Norwegian World Chess Champion and the #1 ranked Magnus Carlsen and the Challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi, a Russian and Number 5 ranked globally. The World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) showed up and requested that FIDE not allow Nepomniachtchi to play with the flag of Russia and the name of his federation conspicuously stating Russia.
This could have caused a slight delay in the play, but for the agreement reached by the FIDE official and the Challenger to change his federation into an acronym that stated CFR (Chess Federation of Russia).
However, today, the play went on to the third game, and both players drew again after the 41st move. GM Nijat Abasov gave some Annotations for Lichess.
Another Drama ensued as the arbiter announced that both players would be going for a dope test. A development that did not augur well with the World Chess Champion, as seen in the tweet by Olipium G Urcan.
Many think this decision by FIDE is a resort of the chess governing body bid to involve the amusing game as part of the Olympic sports, and the IOC condition is the players must do that dope test.
A similar situation occurred at the 2013 world chess championship when Anand played against Carlsen as the defending champion. Then, FIDE Vice President Israel Gelfer hinted that “Urine samples from both Anand and Carlsen would be taken during the tournament. The medical team has FIDE’s mandate to test the players randomly.”
