Eight women denounce sexual abuse committed by the Costa Rican chess player Alejandro Ramírez

Alejandro Tadeo Ramírez at a chess tournament in 2015. Andreas Kontokanis (Creative Commons)

The Time's Up (Me Too) movement reaches the world of chess.

Jennifer Shahade, a two-time United States champion, helped get at least a dozen women to come forward and denounce a sports star, grandmaster Alejandro Tadeo Ramírez.

“I was abused by him twice, nine and ten years ago.

I kept going until a couple of years ago, when multiple women, who didn't know each other and my experience, reached out to me with their stories of alleged abuse," Shahade wrote in mid-February.

The message caused a scandal in the world of chess.

Now it has been revealed that the US Chess Federation knew about some of these allegations for years and did not act.

The accusations have forced Ramírez, 34, to present his resignation on Monday to the San Luis Chess Club (Missouri), where he had among his responsibilities being the coach of the university team.

"It is clear that investigations into claims of inappropriate behavior have proven to be a negative distraction for the club," said the player.

His decision came two days after

sought him out for his version of a long list of abuses committed against at least eight women.

Three of these were minors at the time of the incidents.

One of them assured that Ramírez forced her to drink vodka and then perform oral sex on her.

It was then that the Federation began to investigate the accusations, which have been heard for years in the corridors of high-level competitions.

Time's up.

pic.twitter.com/ItOv73lTX7

— Jennifer Shahade (@JenShahade) February 15, 2023

The investigation published this Tuesday by the American newspaper indicates that the authorities of the Federation and the San Luis Chess Club were officially aware of the accusations against Ramírez since at least 2021. Then, a lawyer for the university mentioned the accusations in a letter that Shahade did in October 2020 and that weighed on the grandmaster, who was born in Costa Rica and who has represented the United States since 2011 in international competitions.

Despite knowing this information, the Federation named Ramírez coach of the US women's team that competed in the Chennai, India, Games in 2022. The position of grandmaster placed him then close to women, some of them under 18 years of age. .

In 2018, Ramírez was the second in the team led by Fabiano Caruana, one of the most prominent names in the sport, in the World Cup.

Another of Ramírez's alleged victims, in an incident that occurred eight years ago, when she was a minor, claimed to have warned members of the San Luis Chess Club in 2016 that it was not advisable to be with Ramírez in a room alone during parties.

The mother of other victims said she had denounced the highest sports authorities in the United States in 2017.

“The university takes all matters of sexual harassment and misconduct very seriously and has robust policies and procedures for responding to complaints,” the educational institution said in a response to The Wall Street

.

The versions of the victims describe Ramírez as a predator who harassed women, almost always at social gatherings or parties.

Shahade, 42, and who is also a grandmaster, affirms that one of the two incidents he experienced with Ramírez occurred in 2014. Both had attended an event in San Luis, where the grandmaster took advantage of the fact that they were alone in a room when he pushed her against a wall and tried to forcefully kiss her.

Six years later, the champion confronted her accuser when they were going to meet to discuss a game in a youth tournament.

Ramirez agreed to sit out the event after a call with Shahade.

Another of the victims who have made their story known indicates that in 2011 he coincided with Ramírez in a camp dedicated to sports.

The Central American was one of the instructors.

One night, he asked her if he could bring toothpaste to her room.

When she came to her room, he pushed her against a counter and began to kiss her despite her resistance.

The girl was then 15 years old.

Albert Watkins, the lawyer representing Ramírez in the allegations, has been skeptical of some of the accusations.

"We are all forced to pause and reflect on the simultaneous, baseless, and belated use of social networks to incite a call to arms by the Me too Movement," said the lawyer, who believes that this type of accusation "It goes against constitutional safeguards."

Ramírez became in 2004, at the age of 15, the first chess grandmaster to come out of Costa Rica.

He decided to dedicate his career to sports after studying Game Design at the University of Texas at Dallas.

His successful career as a chess player made him a leading commentator on the discipline.

In 2022, he witnessed firsthand another of the biggest scandals to rock the black and white world.

Ramírez interviewed Hans Niemann, the player who upset Norwegian world champion Magnus Carlsen, who accused him of cheating after the loss.

Niemann confessed that day that he had used the help of a computer to improve his game between the ages of 12 and 16.

Today it is Ramírez who is the protagonist of a major controversy in the world of chess.