Magnus Carlsen: Six (No, Seven!) Prizes And Another Interview
After winning the world title in Chennai, Magnus Carlsen hasn't been sitting still. Not even mentioning the hundreds of interview requests from all over the world (including the German Playboy!), Carlsen was in London for a G-Star RAW fashion show, had a meeting with the Norwegian Prime Minister at a children's tournament, had and a coaching session with the Norwegian Junior team, and received no less than six [correction: seven] awards in just one month.
Soon after Carlsen returned to Norway with the World Championship title in his pocket, a big discussion started in his country about a matter that everyone will have talked about at some birthday party: is chess a sport? The reason for the debate in Norway was the time of the year: early December, Norwegian athlets receive their nominations for the annual sports gala Idrettsgallaen, to be held January 4th.
Carlsen was not nominated for the most prestigious prize, ‘male athlete’, probably because in the end the jury decided that chess is not a sport — at least not a physical one. For the same reason, chess is still not part of the national sports federation in Norway.
However, since then the world champion of chess did win six other prizes:
- VG's Name of the Year (he also won this in 2009) which included NOK 50,000 (€5916, $8124), to be given to charity. Carlsen chose Save the Children and their work in Syria.
- Aftenposten's Gold Medal for 2013, a prize awarded since 1933.
- VG's #1 in their Top 100 of Norwegian athletes
- Name of the Year by Norwegian paper Dagbladet
- The People's Choice Athlete award by Norwegian paper Dagbladet
- [Update:] Among the 20 Most Impressive People of 2013 according to Business Insider
- Times Young Person of the Year
(As always, thanks to Tarjei J. Svensen's tweets it was relatively easy to keep track of this!)
The above gives a good impression of how busy Carlsen has been since November 22nd. And it doesn't stop there. In January he will travel to the USA, where he will give a simul at the International CES, the world’s largest tradeshow for consumer technology, in Las Vegas. Carlsen will also join an open forum, moderated by Peter Thiel, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.
In the mean time an excellent interview has appeared online, conducted by VG's Mads Andersen, which includes English subtitles:
