This has been a VERY unfortunate situation. The Ivanchuk case is now taking center stage in the chess world. Ukraine was in the position to win the Gold medal if they could beat the U.S. in the final round. They were the heavy favorite by rating.
But the U.S. team pulled off one of the biggest upsets in Chess Olympiad history. Not only they defeated the mighty Ukrainian team, they were very close to score a 4-0 wipe out. The final score was 3.5 – 0.5, giving the U.S. the Bronze medal.
The problem is right after the game, Ivanchuk was “selected” to take a dope test. He refused and stormed off the playing hall in disgust for losing badly against Gata Kamsky. One can understand his disappointment and anger with his own performance.
However, according to FIDE rules, his refusal may lead to various types of sanctions. One sanction may lead to disqualification of Ivanchuk’s personal results obtained in this Olympiad and forfeiture of all medals, points and prizes. He may also face a two-year ban for the 1st violation and a lifetime ban for a 2nd violation.
The big problem now is if this indeed happens, Hungary will get the Bronze on tie-breaks and the U.S. will lose its Bronze medal! Here is what I wrote earlier: In my opinion, medals are to be settled on the board and not due to any technical reason outside of one’s control.
The U.S. and Hungarian teams had nothing to do with this episode. This very serious case is now pending. FIDE’s 5 person medical commission will have to make a decision within 3 months from the conclusion of the Olympiad.
What will FIDE do? Will FIDE penalize Ivanchuk with a 2-year ban and award the Bronze medal to Hungary or will they alienate the Doping Commission of the International Olympic Committee? The second option will probably mean the end of chess being a possible IOC sport (which is what FIDE is trying to do).
What a mess!
Will FIDE penalize Ivanchuk and award the Bronze medal to Hungary will they alienate the Doping Commission of the International Olympic Committee? The second option will probably mean the end of chess being a possible IOC sport (which is what FIDE is trying to do).
FIDE should alienate the Doping Commission. Doping test should not be part of the chess world at all.
FIDE can kiss up to IOC all they want, they won’t make chess an Olympic sport.
The worst thing that could happen is a ban of Ivanchuk. I could not think of someone whom we would miss more than him of the currently active players. He is playing some of the best chess in recent years of his life- and his style and love for the game shows.
I think that there will be some sort of rebellion against FIDE if he were banned. Maybe it will be the end of FIDE finally?FIDE will “cut off your nose to spite their face”. That would be a silver lining.
Hungary did not earn the bronze medal. The U.S.A team did! So why punish the wrong team or country?
The punishment should be Ivanchuks alone.
If FIDE wants to take action, they should just keep the final standings as they are but bump Ukraine to the bottom, without affecting the medal situation. Or they should award another set of Bronze to Hungary to reflect their placing if the tiebreaks were recalculated. But taking away medals after the fact from a team through no fault of the medaling team would be unjust.
Fide will do what a political chess organization does, the wrong call.
The focus is not what FIDE does but rather what the USCF does. Instead of the USCF releasing comments about what they think about Susan, they should be filling their own website with a clear strategy on what they will do if the USA is stripped of their metals.
FIDE will make the wrong call as often these organizations do. This is the time where a national federation defines itself.
Will they defend their own olympiad team? or will they do what they usually do…nothing.
The bronze should stay with the U.S.
The US earned bronze, and that cannot be taken away, even though they may need to surrender the hardware. Ivanchuk knew there would be consequences for his refusal. These consequences harm chess more than they do him, but his principles are correct and honorable. Unless decent men and women stand up to corruption, it will continue to flourish.
The Historian is correct that FIDE will make the wrong decision.
The USCF could issue a resolution of support for Ivanchuk’s principled stand and refuse to return the hardware, but that could hurt us in other sports too. At least Obama is a chess player.
What needs to happen, will not.
Its just a doping test, why not take it? It doesn’t matter how mad you are, you follow the rules like ANY OTHER competition. There are penalties if you don’t. You people say it is UNJUST, yet it happens every OLYMPICS and frankly people deal with it just fine. This chess attitude is only going to sink us, as of right now chess is not very marketable and is extremely undervalued, you people seem to want to make the situation worse. Chess being in the IOC has many benefits and really a doping test here and there isn’t that hard. You really think that a drug that will enhance someones thinking ability and provide an advantage is that farfetched? It is completely justified that the americans lose their medals and the tiebreaks altered, as those was the rules when the tournament started.
Why focus on such a trivial matter as who gets a bronze medal when the main issue is clearly the prospect of Ivanchuk getting banned. Ivanchuk is a legend and GM-level chess would be severely poorer without him
lets make an exception to the rules for the really talented players.
just like companies make exceptions to the rules for the really high priced executives.
not!
Ivanchuk is clearly at fault. Rules are rules! These big chess players with big egos have caused more harm to chess than anything else. Being upset CAN NOT be an excuse about not obliging rules which are set before. This is just a horrible publicity. He should apologize and cooperate
Okay, let us unravel this mess.
First, doping tests in chess are absurd. There is no drug that demonstrably improves chess performance. I understand that this is a “fairness” issue where chess players have to undergo the same testing as other sports in order to participate in the Olympics or other events, but realism is needed. Doping tests are invasive and should only be done with good cause.
Second, this does not excuse Ivanchuk’s behavior. The time to protest doping tests is before the event when conditions are being agreed upon. I really like Ivanchuk’s play but he needed to handle this better. His actions have endangered the legitimacy of the results.
I agree with Susan’s analysis. This whole situation is unfortunate. But we need to come to a consensus on whether or not doping tests are needed and all agree to stick to them whether we like it or not.
-Justin Daniel
So much steam being blown here…There is a very EASY solution for both FIDE and Ivanchuk. All Fide has to do is go to Kiev or Lvov and have Chuky take a piss test, it will allow Fide to save face by not banning/disq Ivanchuk and also comply with IOC. And this is what I predict they will do.
Some people here are obviously confused about the Olympic Games and the Chess Olympiad. The Chess Olympiad is run by FIDE and has nothing to do with the IOC. A decade ago, FIDE decided it wanted to become part of the Olympic family (in the IOC sense) hoping for a shot to be part of the Olympics. If I am not mistaken there was an demonstration event at the Sydney Olympics. One requirement to become an Olympic competition is undergoing doping testing (I am ignoring the prospects of actually garnering enough support to be instated as an Olympic “sport”). Thus, the doping requirement came into play. It is an absurd requirement as there is no known drug enhancing chess playing skills which is hardly a surprise as chess is not a sport in the classical sense.
The Chess Olympiad would continue to go on even without doping tests. It simply reduce FIDE’s chances of becoming an Olympic sport from .0001% to 0. In my opinion, no cause for concern. The prospect of a 2 year ban on Ivanchuk would cause enormous damage to chess and make FIDE again a laughingstock. Besides, how do you enforce a ban? Are you not going to rate Corus or Linares if they invite Ivanchuk? Fide has only control of events that they host as the World Cup or the European Championship. If they ban Ivanchuk from that they can be certain to face a boycott from Ukraine (and hopefully from other players). As a result, the value of whatever championship they host will be devalued. An absolute absurdity!
You can’t complain about the rules when you already broke them (no matter how silly they are). You have to complain when those rules are announced for the first time. And NOBODY complained about doping test when they were announced for the first time.
So bye, bye Ivanchuk. See you in 2 years.
Ivanchuk might be banned, but not his team Ukraine. So bronze still to USA.
Actually, anon 4:35PM, that is not correct. Robert Huebner stopped playing for the German National team after the rule was implemented.
And anon 5:15PM, you are incorrect as well. While Ivanchuk would be the one that would get banned, his team would have to be disqualified from the competition where the rule violation occurred (here: the Chess Olympiad). That means all results by the Ukrainian team would have to be nullified and thus would have an impact on the standings.
This whole situation is the reason why chess is such sad shape.
Keep the fight over the board!
Go GM Polgar!
“…which is what FIDE is trying to do”
“which is what FIDE is trying to AVOID”
I’m really confused, which one is it?
I think it is time to call things with their true names.
FIDE is governed by a soviet beurocrat Kirsak Ilumjinov who is no different than Putin or Breznev.. That guy has no brains, and chess commumity is better without him. He thinks that he can do whatever he wants, and this time punish Ukraine, his soviet style methods are well noticed.
I challange Susan Polgar to stand up against him and start working to become a fide president. Susan will be much fair since she experienced on herself what discrimination was and will not allow any napotism, protectionism or special treatments, and will be fair to everybody.