4 min readOsloUpdated: May 24, 2026 09:39 PM IST
After on-the-bed chess last week in Romania, Alireza Firouzja will be offered the option of playing chess while being seated on a wheelchair this week in Norway. There was some uncertainty about Alireza’s participation at this year’s Norway Chess — due to his ankle injury which forced him to pull out of the Super Chess Classic Romania. But on Sunday, the tournament’s organisers confirmed to The Indian Express that the 22-year-old will play at the two-week-long event starting on Monday at Oslo.
Norway Chess’ social media handle posted a video of Alireza, R Praggnanandhaa, Vincent Keymer, Javokhir Sindarov and Wesley So flying together from Bucharest to Oslo on Sunday where the Frenchman can be seen being wheeled into his hotel by Norway Chess staff.
The organisers are yet to work out the finer details of what tweaks they might have to make to provide Alireza a comfortable experience. For now, they have kept a wheelchair at hand in case the player needs to use it. One thing is certain: Alireza will not be playing while lying in a hotel room bed like he did in two games (against Fabiano Caruana and Javokhir Sindarov) last week before withdrawing from the classical tournament in Romania. The photos from those two games had gone viral with Alireza lying on a bed with his injured leg propped up on a pillow facing an opponent sitting on a chair.
“The day after this picture came out, I contacted him to ask, ‘are you okay?’ He replied almost immediately and assured me he would compete. So we didn’t need to discuss any names for his replacement,” CEO and founder of Norway Chess, Kjell Madland, told The Indian Express. “We wouldn’t have chosen this way (to have a player play from a bed). So once he arrives here, we’ll see what we can do best so that the arrangements are good for him and the other players as well.”
This year’s Norway Chess tournament has been moved from Stavanger to Oslo where the event will be held on the third floor of Deichman Bjørvika, which is Oslo’s main library. The floor is accessible by elevator.
A chess travel crew is heading to Norway 🇳🇴👀
We are extremely happy to see Alireza Firouzja, making it to Norway Chess despite his ankle injury 💪
Everyone seems in great spirits and ready for what’s ahead.
Also huge congratulations to Vincent Keymer on winning the Super… pic.twitter.com/NsLGDXbRdo
— Norway Chess (@NorwayChess) May 24, 2026
Besides Alireza, the open section of Norway Chess will also see players like world champion D Gukesh, R Praggnanandhaa, world no 1 Magnus Carlsen, Wesley So and Vincent Keymer competing.
Had Alireza not been fit to play, it could have been a nightmare for the organisers because the tournament does not have a standby player to fill in when someone withdraws. A situation like that is rare in chess, although a similar one occurred at the recent Women’s Candidates tournament in Cyprus. After Koneru Humpy had withdrawn citing personal safety concerns, Anna Muzychuk had just three days to get prepared before flying to Cyprus.
Alireza’s pull out from the Romania event happened five days before the start of Norway Chess, a really short period for them to get another player to fill in.
“We can’t have standby players for a tournament like Norway Chess because the level of players we usually invite is the cream of the sport. So at that level we cannot have players waiting on a bench waiting to be called up. So it would not be nice to ask them either. So we have never had standby players,” says Madland.
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Madland says that had Alireza pulled out, it would not have been easy to bring a replacement because elite players have tightly-calibrated calendars besides undergoing rigorous prep for tournaments like Norway Chess.
(The writer is in Norway at the invitation of Norway Chess)
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
