Excuse? You must not follow chess too closely. He is the undisputed GOAT. He is clearly bored - he plays atrocious opening moves these days just to get an interesting game. He's so good he transcended the need to keep proving it. Excuse. Lmao. Gukesh is the WC only because he is not good enough to present an interesting challenge.
Magnus may be better player than Gukesh, but the reason he is not defending WC title is not because Gukesh or any opponent is not good enough, but because it takes too much freaking preparation to defend WC title and he doesn't think it is worth the effort.
A completely unprepared Magnus vs a 100% prepared opponent will go to a better prepared opponent (See Magnus interviews if you don't believe this). 4-6 months spending memorizing lines is not easy. It is too much work. Magnus has already proven he is GOAT, he doesn't have to prove anything.
But - this doesn't take away achievement from other players, if Magnus doesn't want to be bothered doing all the prep.I wonder if we will say the same thing in any other sport.
Ma Long for example - did not participated in Paris Olympic singles, does that mean Fan Zedong or Truls moregard achievement was any less? Nobody would say that.
That's just what he says. He is obviously not going to publicly say that he is scared of competing in the WCC. But in all likelihood, he is. At least Ding could compete in the WCC without 6 months prep, which Magnus clearly cannot.
