Another representative of Lviv region won silver.
Albania hosted the World Rapid Chess Championship among children. Participants competed in three age categories: under 8, 10, and 12.
Two representatives of Lviv region returned home with awards: Oleksii Nakonechnyi won gold and Lukian Huzela won silver in their respective age categories.
On his way to the championship in the U-10 category, Oleksiy Nakonechnyi from Truskavets defeated, among others, a representative of the aggressor country who played under the FIDE flag. In total, Nakonechnyi scored 9 points out of 11 possible. Oleksiy is coached by Andriy Zazuliak.
“In this tournament, we had to play against an enemy country, and a guy who is predicted to win the world championship and is called the greatest talent in young chess today lives there. I knew that sooner or later we would meet him. We had been preparing for this meeting for a long time, both psychologically and technically. I believed to the end that we would win. And we beat him in great style,” the father of the Ukrainian champion told Ukrainska Pravda.
Lukian Huzela, a pupil of the Lviv Chess Academy, competed in the under-eight age category. The boy won a silver medal. Lukian finished with a score of 9.5 points out of 11. The chess player is coached by Nazar Firman and Bohdan Lozynsky.
“The chess school of Lviv region is one of the best in the world and has more than three dozen international grandmasters, including: Leonid Shtein, Vasyl Ivanchuk, Oleksandr Belyavsky, Oleh Romanyshyn, Andriy Volokytin, Adrian Mykhalchyshyn, Stepan Popel, Marta Litynska, Anna and Maria Muzychuk, Kateryna Lagno, Natalia Buksa and others. So young people have someone to look up to and learn from, and we see that a strong generation of chess players is growing up,” said Roman Khimyak, head of the Youth and Sports Department of the Lviv Regional Military Administration.