Magnus Carlsen admits fear of losing made him share World Blitz title with Nepomniachtchi: 'My confidence was shaken'

World No.1 chess player Magnus Carlsen’s sharing of the World Blitz Championship 2024 title with Russian Grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi at the end of 2024 had led to a massive controversy in the world of sports. The former world champion also faced match-fixing allegations. It was the first time in history that the World Blitz Championship title was shared between two players , and things got worse after a video of Carlsen and Nepomniachtchi planning to play “short draws” in the tiebreakers until the International Chess Federation, FIDE, decided to share the title went viral.

Indian GM Srinath Narayanan and American Grandmaster Hans Niemann were among the star chess players who criticised Carlsen and Nepomniachtchi for sharing the blitz title and questioned the decision taken by FIDE. The 34-year-old Carlsen, however, has now released a full explanation of what led to him agreeing to share a chess world championship title.

Carlsen says he feared losing the World Blitz title

Speaking to Take Take Take, a chess platform co-owned by the Norwegian, Carlsen revealed that he feared losing the World Blitz Championship final after Nepomniachtchi’s sensational comeback, leading him to propose sharing the title.

“I mean, it’s not a disrespectful question at all. I mean, I’m very open about the fact that I don’t have quite the same drive as I did earlier. It did creep in at some point that I felt like after the comeback he made that he would have been very hard done by if he didn’t get his first world championship title because of this," Carlsen said. “Apart from that, you know, I was, of course, earlier thinking that I was going to win the match. I won the first two games, and I was feeling quite good, and he made a very good comeback. At that point, of course, my confidence was shaken a bit. We played three really high-quality draws in the tiebreak as well.”

Talking about the backlash from the experts, Carlsen said that there was hardly any time for him during the tiebreakers to carefully reflect on the decision he was taking.

“So I wasn’t feeling confident that I was gonna win so it was a combination of that like feeling that it would be a nice solution partly also you know wanting to get out of there with the world championship title and I honestly thought that it would be a nice moment and I still think that that it was. Also, I think people got to realize that at that point, like, you know, you’re not always thinking very clearly. Like, there’s always, like, two-minute break in between rounds. Like, you don’t really have time to go rest at all. And I wasn’t, like, thinking through everything.”

Carlsen also drew parallel with the high jump event at the Tokyo Olympics where two athletes (Italy’s athlete Gianmarco Tamberi and Qatar’s Mutaz Barshim) decided to share the gold medal instead of taking part in a jump-off after registering the same height in the event.

“Of course, you know, it turned out, like, that people didn’t really, didn’t really take it the way that I thought they might, like what happened with the high jump at Olympics and everything. Which is, which is, which is, of course, fine,” Carlsen pointed out.

Carlsen: ‘Happy with the way things concluded’

Five-time world champion Carlsen, who has also been at the forefront of the Freestyle Chess Operation’s battle with FIDE , made it clear at the end that he has no regrets about sharing the 2024 blitz title.

“No, No, no, I’m, you know, I’m happy with the way things concluded. The only thing is I probably didn’t think through everything completely,” Carlsen said.

In the 2024 World Blitz Championship final, Carlsen took a 2-0 lead, but Nepomniachtchi staged a comeback, winning the next two games. This led to a sudden death tiebreak, which ended in three consecutive draws. Carlsen then proposed sharing the title, a suggestion accepted by Nepomniachtchi and FIDE.