13 January 2021

Whither the Women's World Championship?

My first question while Spectating the 91st FIDE Congress on my main blog was 'What about the Women's World Championship?' FIDE has been dithering on the subject for over two years, as a recent post on this current blog, Notes on the Women's Championship (November 2020), documented. The 'Spectating' post mentioned four FIDE announcements (see that post for links):-
  • 2020-12-05: '2020 FIDE Online General Assembly Agenda' • '5.2 Women's World Cup 2021 and World Cup 2021'
  • 2020-12-10: '91st FIDE Congress: decisions, documents, numbers' • 'Even though the Gibraltar Chess Open 2021 had to be canceled, ['founder and driving force behind the Gibraltar Chess Festival, Brian Callaghan'] managed to keep the tradition alive by hosting the fourth and final leg of the FIDE Women's Grand Prix, from January 17-29.'
  • 2020-12-16: 'Decisions of the 4th quarter FIDE Online Council Meeting' • 'fee reduction for women’s titles and ratings'; 'approve the 2021 Grand Swiss and Women’s Grand Swiss Regulations'; 'note EDU, WOM, [...] reports'
  • 2020-12-17: 'Decisions of the FIDE Online General Assembly 2020' • zilch

The first bullet (2020-12-05) is a change to allow federations to nominate participants. See FIDE World Cups 2021: Players nomination (fide.com) for details.

The second bullet (2020-12-10) has since been superseded by FIDE Women's Grand Prix Gibraltar rescheduled (fide.com). This is through no fault of the organizer, but is another casualty of the covid coronavirus.

The third bullet (2020-12-16) might have further info, but I could not find the WOM report. The Commission for Women’s Chess (wom.fide.com) is filled with old news. For details about the Grand Swiss, see Bidding procedure for FIDE Grand Swiss & FIDE Women's Grand Swiss 2021 (fide.com).

The fourth bullet (2020-12-17) sums up the rest: mostly zilch. Maybe the minutes of the Congress will be more informative.

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