You know that he already has stopped participating in the world championship organized by FIDE, right? The current 'world champion' is Gukesh Dommaraju, who took it from Ding Liren the year before, but of course Magnus would probably still be the world champion if he kept competing for it.

I think the point the poster was making, is that there is an asterisk beside Gukesh and Liren's world champ status. Nobody really thinks they're the actual world-champ, regardless of what FIDE says. FIDE failed to attract the best player, to even play.

By the same logic, why would anyone expect that the best player in the world for any given sport happens to compete in the olympics? The issue here is the semantics. FIDE titling someone "world champion" is at the end of the day no different than a burger joint claiming to be the best in the country after winning some competition or another.

To be clear, I don't mean to take issue with the competitions themselves.

Because pretty much every country in the world runs competitions to select the best in every Olympic sport from all who are interested in the sport?

If you don't have the will to compete nobody is obliged to chase you.

Magnus obviously has the will to compete, he competes all the time.

Elite sporting events are absolutely obliged to chase talent, just like any other business is. If they don't, they quickly stop being the elite sporting event. There's a reason why athletes are paid so well...

He expressed lack of will to grind prep for classical matches.