The 16th world champion, Norwegian grandmaster Magnus Carlsen, spoke about the death of chess player Daniel Naroditsky at the age of 29.
According to Idman.Biz, Carlsen specifically mentioned the tragic impact of Vladimir Kramnik's accusations of cheating against Naroditsky.
"Regarding the general situation with Kramnik, not just with Naroditsky, I can say that we had some problems before, although not very serious. Despite all his greatness, I have always felt that his reputation is better than he deserves for many reasons. When he started fighting online cheating, I thought he was fighting correctly, even though I didn't agree with his statistics. But that completely changed him.
He started relentlessly pursuing Naroditsky. I don't think anyone seriously considered Naroditsky a cheater. I supported him, and I probably should have done so more openly. Some may understand why I decided not to do it at the time. I believed that Kramnik's actions against Naroditsky were terrible, and the consequences were obvious. All this had long put him in an extremely difficult situation. No matter how you react to my words, it wasn't right.
This is a great loss, and it hurts us all to feel that a person who was so important and valuable to the chess community, respected by everyone, has ended up in such a situation. It's really very sad," said Carlsen.