Last Monday, 8 days (!!) before our expected departure, WGM Q.Zhou informed CFC that she would not be playing.

Being involved in many Olympiads, I got accustomed to this situation. LeSiege in 2018, now Qiyu Zhou. Actually, the situation in 2018 was easier to handle as the trip to Batumi was more straightforward and didn't require visa.

Rachel Chen is next-in-the-line and was contacted on Monday.

The main problem is getting a visa. Canada has a dispute with India and Canadian passport owners are not eligible for regular e-visas. A Canadian passport, which is usually very convenient for travelling, is a huge problem. Some players have other passports. Eric used his USA passport, Artiom used his Belorussian passport, Raja does not need a visa to travel to India, and I used my Israeli passport. However, for other players/captain/officials it took a lot of time and effort to get a paper visa.

Right now, both Nikolay and Razvan don't have visas yet and hopefully will get them on Monday, just 1 day before our departure. Rachel Chen can get a visa only with great help from FIDE and organizers, but it's not clear right now if she will be able to get it on time.