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3 min readMar 15, 2026 11:44 PM IST
Candidates 2026 draw ceremony at Cyprus: Four Indians will be in action at the tournament starting at the end of this month. (Photo: FIDE)
FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky has confirmed that the Candidates tournament will go ahead as scheduled despite a drone hitting a UK RAF airbase in Cyprus earlier this month. The Candidates tournament, which is held to finalise a challenger to the world champion, will be held in Cap St Georges Hotel and Resort, a five-star coastal venue near Cyprus’ Paphos.
The drone was said to be launched by Iran’s proxy Hezbollah after Israel and USA started a war against Iran. Cyprus is a Mediterranean island flanked by Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Israel.
Of the 16 players who will compete in the Candidates and the Women’s Candidates events, there are four Indian grandmasters in action: Praggnanandhaa competing in the Candidates event to earn the right to challenge D Gukesh while Koneru Humpy, Vaishali Rameshbabu and Divya Deshmukh are competing in the Women’s Candidates event to earn the right to fight against Ju Wenjun in the Women’s World Championship.
However, despite the attack at a British base earlier this month, Sutovsky said that the event would go ahead as scheduled. He added that the president of Cyprus was supposed to open the event on March 28.
“Plans haven’t changed. We are working in the final stages of preparing for the Candidates, which are supposed to start in two weeks’ time,” Sutovsky told Chessbase India in an interview. “Obviously, we’ve been monitoring the situation and Cyprus is not too far from the war zone or conflict zone. But at the same time, it is not directly involved in any way and it is not in a state of war. There is no emergency situation.”
Sutovsky continued: “Of course, there was some alarming news like 10 days ago or something like that. Since then, the situation seems to be rather quiet, but we are not just, you know, relying on the assumption that nothing will happen. We monitor and we are in touch also with government officials.
“We plan for scenarios, no matter how unlikely they are. It is our firm belief that the current situation does not provide any grounds or any reasonable reasons to actually postpone or to remove the event from Cyprus.”
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