was anyone else surprised??

Was anyone else surprised that Anand chose the Grundfield defense?

Unsurprisingly, he lost with the Grundfield.

While I didnt watch game 1 as closely as the others, all the commentary I saw seemed to suggest that he lost because he made a blunder towards the end, not because of his opening choice.

I beg to differ: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=6278

Even that says that he lost because of 23...Kf7 NOT because he played the Gruenfeld.

It says that 16...Qd6 appeared to be new, but not that that move led to his loss. 

Kf7 was the LOSING move but the opening was suspicious to begin with at WC level THAT is what the article says. Read it and weep kid.

Actually, that short article doesn't say that. It says that many GMs thought the opening "unlikely" due to the risks associated with "being run over if things go sour." It also mentions it was an "ill-fated choice," but that is an opinion, not necessarily a statement of fact (I'm not even close to a strong enough player to judge that).

The question becomes, who actually wrote the mini-article and how strong of a player are they? Because, if the World Champion played the opening I very seriously doubt it is really that "suspicious" ... unless it was purely played for psychological reasons; e.g. in order to make Topalov over-extend or be over-confident in the rest of the games.