The England Women’s Team will have a new addition this year – nine-year-old chess prodigy Bodhana Sivanandan will be representing her country at the Chess Olympiad in Hungary. She will make history as the youngest person ever to represent England in any sport. Sivanandan hails from Harrow, northwest London. She will be joining the team as the youngest member by far, with the next youngest teammate being almost 15 years her senior.
The young prodigy is taking her role seriously and practicing hard for the upcoming tournament. On weekdays, she practices for around an hour, and on weekends, when she isn’t playing tournaments, she practices for more than an hour. While some of her teammates are old enough to be her grandparents, there is an increasing number of young people taking an interest in chess. Malcolm Pein, the manager of the England chess team, says that the lockdown and the incredibly successful Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit are the two main factors fueling the new wave of interest.
Sivanandan has already made waves in the chess world, having won all three chess world championships for the under-eight age group back in 2019. She won the classical game, the rapid game, and the blitz game. Despite being a child prodigy, Sivanandan’s father is still left marveling at her genius and is unclear where his daughter could have possibly gotten her talent from. Her father, an engineering graduate, also attempted to play chess but was unsatisfactory during the games.
Pein, the manager of the England chess team, claims that Sivanandan is the most remarkable prodigy that British Chess has ever seen and is excited about her future. He believes she is on course to become one of the best British players in history. Furthermore, he is confident Sivanandan will achieve her ultimate goal of becoming a grandmaster, the highest title in international chess. Abhimanyu Mishra from the US currently holds the record for the youngest grandmaster title at age 12 in 2021. However, young Bodhana allegedly plans to claim the title in 2022 at the tender age of 10 – a year before she finishes primary school.
Chess makes Sivanandan feel “good,” she says, and helps her with math and calculation. It seems the chess world could be seeing a lot more of this child prodigy in the coming years
Read the full article from The BBC here: Read More