Oleksii Nakonechnyi, a 10-year-old chess player from Truskavets, won the U10 World Cadet Rapid Chess Championship in Albania, defeating Russian champion Roman Shogdzhiev, who participated in the tournament as a neutral player.
  • @Godric
    16•18 days ago

    Oleksii Nakonechnyi played against 11 opponents, winning seven games and drawing four.

    Oleksii’s father, Ihor Nakonechnyi, told Ukrainska Pravda that he and his son were discouraged from participating in the championships due to the presence of Russians.

    "Many people said: ‘Don’t go, because the Russians will be there,’ " Nakonechnyi said in an interview published April 30.

    “I told them that we had already given them too much, and we had to go and take it back from them. If it wasn’t for Oleksii, the guy from Russia would have been first, and now he’s second.”