Alireza Firouzja

Alireza Firouzja is an Iranian chess player. He won the Iranian Chess Championship at the age of 12, and earned the Grandmaster title at the age of 14. He is the second-youngest player ever to reach a rating of 2700, accomplishing this at the age of 16 years and 1 month. As of November 2019, Firouzja was the No. 1 ranked Iranian player and the No. 1 U16 player in the world with a FIDE rating of 2720. In December 2019, Firouzja announced that he would no longer play under the Iranian flag, after Iran withdrew its players from the 2019 World Rapid and Blitz Championship to uphold their ban against Iranians playing against Israelis. He is currently based in France and announced in early 2020 his intention to play under the French flag.