Navigate
X
    Emil Lazarian
  • 3 years ago
    • Categories: 2021

Levon Aronian to play at Grand Chess Tour under the Armenian flag

Panorama, Armenia

Armenian Grandmaster Levon Aronian will participate in the 2021 Grand Chess Tour, which returns after its cancellation last year due to the global pandemic. Aronian will play under the Armenian flag, according to the players' profiles on the official website of the tournament. 

Aronian  will join nine other world elite as full-tour participants in the 2021 GCT schedule, which  features two classical tournaments with prize funds of $325,000 each, including the kickoff event in Romania in June and the tour finale Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis in August.

To remind, in February GM Levon Aronian announced his decision to leave Armenia and switch to the U.S. due to “broken promises” by the current authorities. “After waiting for the fulfillment of the promises of the incumbent authorities for more than a year, I realized that I had to make a breakthrough decision to leave my native country,” he said, stating every year of expecting change is a waste of time in his career.

Emil Lazarian: “I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” - WS