A child chess prodigy from Pinner has made history by winning the UK Women’s Blitz Championship at just 10 years old.
Bodhana Sivanandan, who attends St John Fisher Catholic Primary School, swept the board at the national competition on Saturday, November 22. She earned a place among the top 50 women in the world for the blitz category of speed chess, where games last no more than 10 minutes.
Bodhana won eight games in a row, triumphing over older and more experienced opponents.
The British High Commissioner to India said: “Earlier this year, Sivanandan became the youngest female chess player to defeat a grandmaster by beating 60-year-old Peter Wells at the 2025 British Chess Championships in Liverpool. Congratulations!”
Malcolm Pein, from the English Chess Federation, described Bodhana as a “generational talent with no equivalent in any other sport”.
He added: “It’s hard to say what is more remarkable – the fact that a 10-year-old is a top seed in a British chess championship, or that she strolls to victory by a huge margin.”
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