Nine-year-old girl to make history representing England
- Published
Meet nine-year-old chess champion Bodhana Sivanandan.
She is the youngest person to be selected in any sport to represent England at an international sporting competition.
Part of a team of five players, where the next youngest player is 23, Bodhana has been chosen for the England women's team playing in the Chess Olympiad in Budapest this September.
Bodhana only started playing chess during lockdown, before she caught the attention of the chess world in 2022 at the British championships.
More Chess stories:
- Published20 July 2023
- Published6 July 2021
- Published21 December 2023
Bodhana will also be taking part in a more local competition on Sunday 7 July.
She will play alongside the new generation of young English chess players who started playing in lockdown, at ChessFest 2024 in Trafalgar Square in London.
The event is the biggest chess event in the UK and is open to anyone who wants to learn to play, or have a go at testing their skills against one of these talents.
Other young people who have represented England at international sporting competitions...
Britain's youngest Olympians back in the 1932 Winter Olympic Skating Competition were Cecilia Colledge and Megan Taylor.
They were both 11 years old when they competed in figure skating.
Since then, Anna Hursey first competed for Wales in table tennis in 2017, when she was just 10!
She then became the youngest athlete at a Commonwealth Games in 2018, aged 11, and will be representing GB in the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
Read more:
- Published28 August 2023
- Published15 November 2021
- Published25 June 2015