Hans Niemann has withdrawn last minute from Paris Freestyle 2025. The news came right after the official technical meeting on April 5 at 19:00 CET. The organizers have cited “personal reasons”. There is no official statement from Hans Niemann’s camp as of today, April 6 21:30 CEST. See the developing story Hans Niemann withdrawing from Paris Freestyle Chess 2025 / See all details of Freestyle Paris 2025 here
It has been 24 hours since the news of Hans Niemann withdrawal from Freestyle Chess Paris became public knowledge. No news from Niemann himself spark speculations. See all reactions to Hans Niemann withdrawing from Paris Freestyle Chess 2025
The organizer of Freestyle Chess Paris Jan Henric Buettner commented in a video interview for Take Take Take on the withdraw of Hans Niemann. “I texted him the day before yesterday, Friday evening at 7 pm, I said, ‘Hans, we are already here, are you here as well’. He read the Whatsapp message (because of the two blue checkmarks), but he did not answer. The yesterday we came to the venue, where I was very impressed what [the Freestyle team] has done. I did a video inside and outside, and I sent it to Hans to remind him that we are here and we have an appointment this afternoon. I sent the videos to him and he did not read it. […] So I called him on Whatsapp, it rang through, and nothing. Then I called him on the regular phone – voicemail. […] Around 7pm Sebastien came to me, ‘Look, we have a big problem.’ Hans sent him an email and he said, ‘Due to personal situation out of my control, I cannot participate’ Obviously he is not coming, so I wrote him and email with three words – Call Me Now. Nothing happened. So, it is one day before media day. We can’t care about the reasons whatever happened to Hans, we have to focus on our tournament.” Jan Henric Buettner continued, “For me it does not really matter if he is in a North Korea prison camp or whatever, he could have just called me. It makes more sense than not taking my calls, not answering my messages, not getting to me at all. ” See the full statement in the video
Regarding the news about the new security measures, the organizer of Freestyle Chess Paris Jan Henric Buettner said, “I do not know exactly the timing [when that was announced], but I can say we have very strict security measures. I even talked to Hans Niemann about that earlier, much earlier. In your own interest, I said, you want to clear your name, you want chess to peak for itself, you want to get rid of all the rumors about cheating and so on. So it is in your own interest that we are having the strongest security measures that we can ever have. I informed him long ago, but I was not specific in what we are doing. […] There was a technical meeting document that was 40 pages long that also covered security measures. I really do not want to speculate. I am still waiting for Hans Niemann to give a real explanation.” More about Take Take Take here
Timeline of Hans Niemann withdrawing from Freestyle Chess Paris
05.04. Norwegian TV reports that Niemann is withdrawing after he was informed about anti-cheating
05.04 Breaking: Hans Niemann withdraws from Freestyle Chess Paris 2025 (rolling updates)
06.04 Reactions to Hans Niemann withdrawing from Paris Freestyle Chess 2025
06.04 Chess Song: Disappearing stars (Hans Niemann & Alireza Firouza) #TweetOftheDay
06.04 The organizer of Freestyle Chess Paris comments on the withdraw of Hans Niemann
