A French National
He moved to France and acquired French nationality in 2000. While he has not yet managed to win the French Championship, he came close in 2003 when he tied first with Joël Lautier and Étienne Bacrot, losing out to Bacrot in a playoff. In 2005, he finished equal second with 14-year-old Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, behind Lautier.
There have been two appearances for the French Olympiad team (in 2002 and 2006) and he further represented his adopted country at the European Team Chess Championship of 2003, held in Plovdiv.
Read more about this topic: Andrei Sokolov
Famous quotes containing the words french and/or national:
“The French courage proceeds from vanity—the German from phlegm—the Turkish from fanaticism & opium—the Spanish from pride—the English from coolness—the Dutch from obstinacy—the Russian from insensibility—but the Italian from anger.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“All men are lonely. But sometimes it seems to me that we Americans are the loneliest of all. Our hunger for foreign places and new ways has been with us almost like a national disease. Our literature is stamped with a quality of longing and unrest, and our writers have been great wanderers.”
—Carson McCullers (1917–1967)