{"id":14882,"date":"2026-02-10T10:01:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T10:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/norwaychess.no\/?p=14882"},"modified":"2026-02-10T10:03:29","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T10:03:29","slug":"alireza-firouzja-to-compete-at-norway-chess-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/norwaychess.no\/en\/2026\/02\/10\/alireza-firouzja-to-compete-at-norway-chess-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Alireza Firouzja to Compete at Norway Chess 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"587\" data-end=\"692\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong data-start=\"587\" data-end=\"692\">Alireza Firouzja, one of the most dynamic players of his generation, returns to Norway Chess in 2026.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cI\u2019m looking forward to competing against the best chess players in the world at Norway Chess 2026 in Oslo,\u201d says Firouzja.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-14883 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/norwaychess.no\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Alireza-Firouzja-photo-Stev-Bonhage-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"Alireza Firouzja\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" srcset=\"https:\/\/norwaychess.no\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Alireza-Firouzja-photo-Stev-Bonhage-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/norwaychess.no\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Alireza-Firouzja-photo-Stev-Bonhage-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/norwaychess.no\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Alireza-Firouzja-photo-Stev-Bonhage-150x84.jpg 150w, https:\/\/norwaychess.no\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Alireza-Firouzja-photo-Stev-Bonhage-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/norwaychess.no\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Alireza-Firouzja-photo-Stev-Bonhage-317x178.jpg 317w, https:\/\/norwaychess.no\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Alireza-Firouzja-photo-Stev-Bonhage.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Photo:<\/strong> Norway Chess \/ Stev Bonhage<\/span><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"949\" data-end=\"1288\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Firouzja made history as the youngest player ever to reach a 2800 rating, a milestone achieved by only a select few in chess history. He earned the grandmaster title at just 14 years old and became the second-youngest player ever to cross the 2700 rating mark at the age of 16, underlining his rapid rise to the top of international chess.<\/span><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1290\" data-end=\"1626\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">He has qualified for the FIDE Candidates Tournament twice, first by winning the FIDE Grand Swiss in 2021 at just 18 years old, and later through the FIDE rating list in January 2024.<\/span><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1628\" data-end=\"1966\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Norway Chess is familiar ground for Firouzja. He has competed in the tournament on four previous occasions and has been a central figure in several memorable editions. His strongest results came in 2020 and 2021, when he finished runner-up both years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1628\" data-end=\"1966\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cAlireza Firouzja has been part of Norway Chess for several years and has consistently delivered performances at the very highest level, says <span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Benedicte Westre Skog<\/span><\/span>, COO of Norway Chess. He brings intensity, ambition and world-class quality to the field. We\u2019re very pleased to welcome him back to Oslo in 2026.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1628\" data-end=\"1966\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-14886 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/norwaychess.no\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/NC2024_Photos_Stev_Bonhage_Round2_Alireza_Firouzja_280524_Stavanger_Norway_DSC_3693-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" srcset=\"https:\/\/norwaychess.no\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/NC2024_Photos_Stev_Bonhage_Round2_Alireza_Firouzja_280524_Stavanger_Norway_DSC_3693-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/norwaychess.no\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/NC2024_Photos_Stev_Bonhage_Round2_Alireza_Firouzja_280524_Stavanger_Norway_DSC_3693-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/norwaychess.no\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/NC2024_Photos_Stev_Bonhage_Round2_Alireza_Firouzja_280524_Stavanger_Norway_DSC_3693-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/norwaychess.no\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/NC2024_Photos_Stev_Bonhage_Round2_Alireza_Firouzja_280524_Stavanger_Norway_DSC_3693-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/norwaychess.no\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/NC2024_Photos_Stev_Bonhage_Round2_Alireza_Firouzja_280524_Stavanger_Norway_DSC_3693-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/norwaychess.no\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/NC2024_Photos_Stev_Bonhage_Round2_Alireza_Firouzja_280524_Stavanger_Norway_DSC_3693-317x211.jpg 317w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1628\" data-end=\"1966\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Photo:<\/strong> Norway Chess \/ Stev Bonhage<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alireza Firouzja, one of the most dynamic players of his generation, returns to Norway Chess in 2026. \u201cI\u2019m looking forward to competing against the best chess players in the world at Norway Chess 2026 in Oslo,\u201d says Firouzja. Photo: Norway Chess \/ Stev Bonhage Firouzja made history as the youngest player ever to reach a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":14883,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/norwaychess.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/norwaychess.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/norwaychess.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/norwaychess.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/norwaychess.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14882"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/norwaychess.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14895,"href":"https:\/\/norwaychess.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14882\/revisions\/14895"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/norwaychess.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/norwaychess.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/norwaychess.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/norwaychess.no\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}