FIDE confirms the 11-year-old Harrow player is the youngest Woman Grandmaster ever, after scoring 8 from 11 on England's top board at the Samarkand Olympiad.

Bodhana Sivanandan, the 11-year-old Harrow chess player, has become the youngest Woman Grandmaster in history.

She earned the title at the 46th Chess Olympiad in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, where she played every round on top board for England’s women’s team. She finished on 8 points from 11 games.

The International Chess Federation (FIDE) reported on 26 September that she had secured her third and final WGM norm. In doing so, FIDE said, she became “the youngest-ever player to fulfill the requirements for the Woman Grandmaster title”.

FIDE’s October rating list, published on 1 October, now lists her as WGM Sivanandan, Bodhana, of England, rated 2382. The Olympiad earned her 28 rating points, the seventh-largest gain among the world’s top 100 open and women players in the period.

How she scored 8 from 11

She won six games, drew four and lost one. The draws included games against Azerbaijan’s Ulviyya Fataliyeva, Ukraine’s Anastasiia Hnatyshyn and Georgia’s Nana Dzagnidze. Her one defeat was to Peru’s Deysi Cori.

Every game below was on board one. The results are from FIDE’s official Olympiad results service.

Round England’s opponents Her opponent Result
1 Barbados Hannah Wilson Won
2 Nigeria Deborah Ebimobo-ere Quickpen Won
3 Brazil Juliana Sayumi Terao Won
4 Azerbaijan Ulviyya Fataliyeva Drew
5 Australia Zhiyuan Shen Won
6 Ukraine Anastasiia Hnatyshyn Drew
7 Turkmenistan Lala Shohradova Won
8 Peru Deysi Cori Lost
9 Estonia Mai Narva Drew
10 Georgia Nana Dzagnidze Drew
11 Philippines Janelle Mae Frayna Won

FIDE’s report came after round 10, so the record was already hers before the last game. She then won that one too.

Seven weeks, two records

The Olympiad title came seven weeks after another record. On 9 August she became Britain’s youngest-ever women’s champion at the British Chess Championships in Coventry. She beat Ireland’s Trisha Kanyamarala in a rapid playoff.

FIDE said the previous record belonged to Elaine Pritchard, who won the title outright in 1939 aged 13.

Her other milestones, as recorded by the English Chess Federation:

  • 2024: the youngest person ever to represent England internationally in any sport, when she was picked for the women’s team at the Olympiad in Hungary (ECF, April 2026)
  • 2025: the youngest female player ever to beat a grandmaster, Peter Wells, at the British Championships in Liverpool, where she also became the youngest ever to earn a WGM norm
  • April 2026: England’s top-rated woman player, and into the world’s top 100 women at number 72

The federation describes her as “a Harrow schoolgirl who took up the game during lockdown after finding a chessboard and set in a bag her father wanted to throw out”.

Richard Walsh, the ECF’s chief executive, said in April: “Across all sports, she must be one of the most prodigious talents England has ever produced.”

What it means for you

Woman Grandmaster is a FIDE title, held for life. It sits below the open titles of International Master and Grandmaster, which are the next targets for any player at her level.

For Harrow, it means one of the most talked-about young players in world chess is a local schoolgirl. Families whose children have caught the bug can find a nearby club through the English Chess Federation’s clubs page.

Her ratings and results update monthly on FIDE’s rating lists.