Aya Bayramova, a 9-year-old chess player from Turkmenabat, won the bronze medal in blitz at the World Cadet Chess Championship in Durres (Albania), which was held in two formats with shortened time control.
The competition brought together 375 boys and girls from 43 countries, who competed for medals in rapid and blitz in three age categories: under 8, 10 and 12 years old. In rapid, each player was allocated 15 minutes per game with a 5-second increment per move. In blitz - the lightning-fast chess game - it was 5 minutes per game with a 3-second increment per move.
Our compatriot became the bronze medalist in the age category under-10, in which 41 girls competed for the world championship awards. By winning her last two rounds against Malika Norkulova from Uzbekistan and Alicia Zhu from the USA, Aya Bayramova (FIDE rating 1657) scored 7.5 points out of 11 possible. Zhansaya Sholpanbek from Kazakhstan also scored the same number of points. However, our chess player had better tiebreaks, which ultimately placed her in 3rd place, losing only to the tournament winner Alisa Genriette Yunker from Russia (10 points, FIDE rating 1883) who competed under the FIDE flag, and the second-placed Sharvaanica A.S. from India (FIDE rating 1673) with 9 points.
It is noteworthy that the second participant from Turkmenistan in this age category, Dunya Ruslanova (FIDE rating 1634), with 7 points, took a high 7th place among 41 medal contenders.
In other categories, it is worth noting the 5th place of the 7-year-old Aylar Hemrayeva from the Mary velayat (FIDE rating 1476) in the blitz among girls under 8 years old. Aylar scored 6.5 points out of 11 possible among 20 participants, lagging behind the bronze medalist Eliza-Ioana Badescu from Romania by one point. The world champion in this group was Nguyen Vu Bao Chau from Vietnam (FIDE rating 1607) with a perfect score of 11 points, who was 2 points ahead of the second-placed Alisha Bissaliyeva from Kazakhstan.
In the rapid tournaments, the best result in our team was shown by Aya Bayramova, who with 7.5 points took 7th place among 43 participants in the age category U10. She is practicing chess under the guidance of Guljahan Ovlyakulieva, Honored Coach of Turkmenistan.
Among the leaders in the total number of medals were representatives of Russia, the USA, Vietnam, Kazakhstan and India. The overwhelming majority of Turkmen athletes completed the World Cadet Championship in the upper part of the tournament table, scoring more than 50 percent of the possible points.
In general, if we compare the results of the performance of our young chess players at the current world championship with the results of previous years at these competitions, we can notice a certain progress. The Chess Federation of Turkmenistan associates this with a large number of participations in both domestic and international tournaments, the introduction of the FIDE international rating system in the country, the digitalization of chess, as well as the growing motivation among young athletes due to the emergence of new opportunities to showcase their talent at the competitive level and represent the honor of their country in prestigious international competitions.
