MOSCOW, Nov 24 Russian Chess Federation on its official website announced the composition of the national team for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) tournament, and also stated that it regrets the refusal of Russian grandmaster Sergei Karyakin to lead the team at this competition.
Daniil Dubov, Andrey Esipenko, Anastasia Bodnaruk will take part in the tournament, Alexander Ryazantsev will be the team captain.
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"As you know, we offered to lead the team to Sergey Karyakin, but he refused because he had other priorities: the grandmaster referred to participation in a commercial tournament. It is a pity that one of the strongest chess players in the country does not find time and does not accept the invitation either to participate in the Superfinal of the Russian Championship or to play for the national team in the SCO tournament, where we will be allowed to perform with the flag and anthem. However, we believe that our team will achieve high results,” said Alexander Tkachev, executive director of the Russian Chess Federation.
The SCO tournament will be held on December 17-18 in Qingdao (China). In addition to the Russian team, the organizers invited teams from Azerbaijan, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to participate.