Chess’ new world champion is the youngest in the competition’s history.
Indian prodigy Gukesh Dommaraju, 18, defeated China’s Ding Liren in the final round of a best-of-14 competition.
The win caps a remarkable rise by Gukesh, who became a grandmaster at 12 and is the first Indian to win since 2007.
The teen was a “locked vault of emotions” during the championship, The Indian Express wrote, spending the weeks-long competition in Singapore “unlike most people from his generation… with bare minimum social media and internet usage.”
Gukesh’s seemingly singular focus belies the fraught backdrop to this year’s competition: Russian players were banned, while high-profile Norwegian grandmaster Magnus Carlsen said he was too bored to compete.
AD