For one thing, the fact that Carlsen is making this statement now and not weeks earlier is embarrassing.

For another, the evidence he presents is disappointingly weak. I can understand being suspicious of online games. Fair enough. But the evidence for cheating offline is:

1) Rapid progress in OTB chess. This rapid progress is still much less rapid than many other players and involved Hans quite clearly spending nearly 2 years only focused on chess during and after the pandemic. 2) Him competing as black in a way only a handful of players could. I’d argue there is almost no one who stands even a 10% chance of beating Magnus as black OTB. But, if all the GMs playing Magnus had a 0.1% chance, then there’s a 1/2000 chance he loses, and the loss is not likely to be to one of the top players simply because there are far more non top players. 3) Lack of nervousness. Well, it’s hard to see how Magnus would be beat by someone who was nervous. On 1 hand, Hans had nothing to lose and be nervous about. On the other hand Magnus had a ton of pressure on a quest for 2900.

At the end of the day, Hans didn’t play a brilliancy to beat Magnus. He simply played normal decent moves. The game itself presented no evidence of cheating.