Bodhana Sivanandan Becomes the Youngest Woman Grandmaster in Chess History at Age 11
Indian-origin British prodigy Bodhana Sivanandan secured her third and final Woman Grandmaster (WGM) norm at the 46th Chess Olympiad in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, becoming the youngest WGM in history at age 11 and displacing Kateryna Lagno's 2002 mark of 12 years and 4 months. Playing Board 1 for England, she scored 8/11 and also picked up her second International Master norm as England finished 15th. Her first WGM norm came in July 2025 at age 10, bettering Hou Yifan's record; she is also the youngest person to represent England internationally, at age 9. Separately, V.S. Rathanvel of Coimbatore became India's 99th Grandmaster this year.
FIDE, the world chess federation, was founded in 1924 in Paris and is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland | The Chess Olympiad is a biennial team event organised by FIDE | Viswanathan Anand became India's first Grandmaster in 1988