Sara Khadem beaten in her debut as a Spanish chess player
The Iranian-Spanish chess player made her debut at the 2023 FIDE World Cup against Indonesia’s Medina Aulia Warda. She still has options to make the next round.
It has been a very intense few weeks for Sara Khadem, as she herself told AS. The chess player was nationalized by fast track in the Spanish Council of Ministers on 25 July - just days before her opening match at the 2023 FIDE World Cup at the Marriott Boulevard hotel in Baku, Azerbaijan. The start to the competition has not been as she expected since the Spanish-Iranian lost her opening Round 2 game to Indonesia’s Medina Aulia Warda.
On Thursday, Khadem will have the chance to make amends for the defeat in her opening game - if she wins the second game, she will have the chance to qualify for Round 3. Sara, who is ranked number 15 in the world, is looking to return to the first step on the world scene after a very difficult year for her in which she has practically not been able to train or compete. The lack of practice has weighed on her debut but her level and experience invites us to think that she will be able to beat Aulia in the second game.
First game as a Spanish national
At the 2022 World Rapid Chess Championships, Sara Khadem defied the Iranian government and the country’s laws by participating in the event without wearing the country’s traditional hijab. She was subsequently ruled out appearing in the competition as a message of rejection of the imposed regime and freedom for women. This act caused Khadem to have to go into exile from the country due to the threat of reprisals. The possibility that she could be arrested forced her to leave Iran and find a new home for herself, her husband and their son. The chess player decided to settle in Spain, a place where she feels protected and where she can develop her profession without pressure or limitations.
Since childhood, Sara knew she wanted to be a chess player and she immersed herself in the sport. Now, at the age of 26, she is seeking to get her life back to normal and recover the high level that has made her one of the 15 best female chess players in the world. However, some things have changed and she might need to take precautions. Although she is not very concerned about her own safety, she does not hide her fear of infiltrators from the Iranian secret service. From now on, Sara Khadem will represent Spain in chess tournaments around the world with gratitude for the opportunity obtained but without forgetting her origins and everything she has experienced before emigrating to Europe.