Bodhana Sivanandan earned a place in the record books last Saturday when the Harrow schoolgirl, just seven years old, tied for second prize in the UK women’s blitz championship at Leamington Spa. As joint winner of the English title she broke the existing age record for a national women’s champion by more than four years in a remarkable performance against opposition led by internationally seasoned rivals.
The open winner was Elmira Mirzoeva, 41, a former Moscow women’s champion now resident in London and playing under a neutral Fide flag. Sivanandan, a point behind, shared the English title with Sussex-based Kamila Hryshchenko, 20, who as a Ukrainian was the 2019 world girls under-18 blitz champion. “Blitz” was defined as three minutes per player for the entire game, plus an increment of two seconds per move.
