Galileo

In order to prevent spreading of the novel coronavirus, the Russian Ministry of Sports has cancelled until further notice all international sports events in the Russian Federation, starting from March 16, 2020, but FIDE President Arkady Vladimirovich Dvorkovich reassured the public that the imminent Candidates Tournament won’t be affected at all by the decree — implicitly meaning that chess is not a terrestrial sport but rather a metaphysical mind game. Curiously enough, just about the same hour, the opening ceremony was taking place at the Yekaterinburg-Expo exhibition and congress centre, in the presence of well over a thousand of spectators, but in absence of the eight “Candidates”. Dvorkovich himself and 12th World Chess Champion Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov gave welcoming speeches, leaving then the stage to the violinist virtuoso Yuri Abramovich Bashmet and to the ballet’s étoiles of the Bolshoi Theatre. Photo © Lennart Ootes.