Bodhana Sivanandan, a 9-year-old Tamil from Harrow, north-west London, has been named as a player in the England Women's Team at the Chess Olympiad this year.
Bodhana makes history as the youngest person ever in any sport to represent England internationally. On the team, the next youngest teammate is 23-year-old Lan Yao. Earlier this month, Bodhana's call to the team was celebrated in Trafalgar Square with a crowd of over 23,000 people as she took part in the annual ChessFest event.
Her father, Siva, expressed shock at his daughter's expertise in chess. He states that both he and his wife are engineering graduates and that he was poor at playing chess. The 9-year-old prodigy first played chess during the pandemic as she received a chess board alongside other possessions from India. Bodhana stated that chess makes her "feel good" and that it helps her with maths and calculations.
Bodhana at Number 10 Downing Street, where she met then-UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak last year.
Previously, Bodhana astonished the chess world at The European Blitz Chess Championship where she was crowned best female player. In doing so, she became the youngest player to avoid defeat against a grandmaster in a competitive game and took the first prize for women at the event.
At the time the European Chess Union said the "super-talented" eight-year-old had achieved an "astonishing result".
The Chess Olympiad runs from September 10th to September 23rd this year.
