Goryachkina Aleksandra

Born 28 September 1998 | Federation: Russia | Rating: 2564

Aleksandra Goryachkina is a two-time world junior U20 champion (2012, 2013) and a two-time women's champion of Russia (2015, 2017). She is the world and European women's champion as a member of the Russian national team.

Aleksandra was born on September 28, 1998, in Orsk, a city in the Orenburg region, in the Southern Ural, where Europe meets Asia. Her father Yury, a strong chess player, has helped his daughter since she was a child. Goryachkina immediately achieved a dominant position in her age group and improved her position by winning the world youth championships under 10 and 14 years old, as well as the European championships under 12 and 14 years old.

Soon, a rising star moved to Salekhard, the only city in the world that is located directly on the Polar Circle. Aleksandra started to work with a famous coach and grandmaster Vladimir Belov, and it was again a breakthrough: she won the Russian Women's Cup in Saint Petersburg (2011), became the world's second youngest woman grandmaster after Hou Yifan, won the European and world championships in higher age groups, while often being much younger than her rivals. Over the year, her rating grew by almost 300 points from 2045 to 2333.

In 2012, Goryachkina won the Russian Cup and then the world's junior U20 championship. In 2013, Aleksandra regained her "Chess Princess" title and debuted in the Superfinal of the Russian Championship. In her match against the best Russian female chess players, it took Goryachkina three attempts to achieve her goal: Aleksandra took first place in Chita 2015. In the same year, she won the Russian Women's Cup for the second time.

In 2017, Aleksandra Goryachkina became a two-time Russian women's champion and won the silver medal in the Individual European Women's Championship.

In 2013, Goryachkina debuted at the European Team Championship as part of the Russian national women's team. In 2015, she became the champion of the Old World as part of the national women's team and won the gold medal for the best result on the third board. In 2017, she won the World Team Championship as part of the Russian national women's team.

At the recent World Team Championship (Nur-Sultan, March 2019), Alexandra also won the gold medal on the third board by demonstrating an outstanding result – 8 points out of 9. The Russian national women's team scored second in that tournament.

In May 2019, Goryachkina played the first board for the Yamal team in the Russian Team Championship (Higher League, open section) and scored 6/8 (Elo performance 2670). This result helped her team qualify for the Russian Team Championship (Premier League, open section) in 2020.

At the FIDE Women's Candidates Tournament (Kazan, Russia) in the end of May - June 2019 Aleksandra Goryachkina had an impressive victory with two rounds to go, and qualified for the Women's World Chess Championship match against Ju Wenjun.