Nakamura says Carlsen the reason for his absence at World Rapid and Blitz Team Championships: 'Because I was unable...'

American Grandmaster and popular streamer Hikaru Nakamura isn't part of the action at the fourth edition of the FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Team Championships that got underway in Hong Kong on Wednesday. His absence comes as a surprise considering the 38-year-old is widely considered one of the greatest speed chess players of all time, and is a regular when it comes to participating in leading online chess events such 'Titled Tuesday' on Chess.com.

Also Read | All you need to know about FIDE World Team Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships

The five-time US chess champion, however, recently revealed the reason behind his absence from the tournament, which has witnessed eight rounds across the first two days of the competition.

"The reason that I’m not participating in this tournament is that last year I played in the FIDE World Rapid & Blitz Team Championships for the WR Chess team when the event was held in London," Nakamura, who is among the top-three players in the world in both Rapid and Blitz chess, was quoted by RookReview as saying.

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"But this time around, the WR Chess team did not invite me back. They instead replaced me with none other than the five-time World Champion Magnus Carlsen. That probably won’t come as a big surprise. There’s also additional replacement where Alireza Firouzja was also replaced by Fabiano Caruana.

"So, because I was unable to play for the WR Chess team and I did not receive any offers, emails, any sort of correspondence with any other team — I simply am not playing," he added.

Carlsen headlines fourth edition of World Rapid and Blitz Team Championships

World No 1 Carlsen, who is the reigning world champion in Rapid as well as Blitz chess, is part of the WR Chess team alongside Fabiano Caruana, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Wesley So, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Alexandra Kosteniuk, Hou Yifan, Wadim Rosenstein and Gombojav Zandanshatar.

The tournament also features an all-Indian teams Chessgurukul and Team MGD1 that are headlined by R Praggnanandhaa and Arjun Erigaisi respectively.

Nakamura had recently participated at the FIDE Candidates in Cyprus, finishing fifth out of eight players in the gruelling tournament that decides the challenging to the reigning Classical world champion.

He had recently confirmed that he will be representing the United States at the Chess Olympiad, which will be taking place in Samarkand, Uzbekistan from 15 to 27 September this year.