The German men are the favorites to win the tournament

DSB/Frank Hoppe

It has been a long time since Germany was so strongly represented in the Mitropacup as this year. After our women will start with five top players, the men will also be extremely strong. Five of the top six players in the current German FIDE-Ranking are in Apolda: Matthias Blübaum, Alexander Donchenko, Dmitrij Kollars and the brothers Rasmus and Frederik Svane were nominated by national coach Jan Gustafsson.Only our world class player Vincent Keymer will be missing. Whether this will weaken the German team is questionable in view of the competition from the other nine countries. Only Italy with Luca Moroni and Austria with Markus Ragger have 2600s in their line-up, while we can use our five 2600s on every board. But the high rating alone is no guarantee for points. We are excited to see how our quintet compares to the best young players in Europe and if we can really live up to our role as favorites.