Anna Muzychuk | |
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![]() Muzychuk in 2023 | |
Full name | Anna Olehivna Muzychuk |
Country | |
Born | Lviv, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union | 28 February 1990
Title | Grandmaster (2012) |
FIDE rating | 2525 (August 2024) |
Peak rating | 2606 (July 2012) |
Peak ranking |
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Anna Olehivna Muzychuk (Ukrainian: Анн́а Оле́гівна Музичу́к; Slovene: Ana Muzičuk; born 28 February 1990) is a Ukrainian chess player who holds the title of Grandmaster (GM). She is the fourth woman in chess history to attain a FIDE rating of at least 2600. She has been ranked as high as No. 197 in the world, and No. 2 among women. Muzychuk is a three-time world champion in fast chess, having won the Women's World Rapid Chess Championship once in 2014 and the Women's World Blitz Chess Championship twice in 2014 and 2016. In classical chess, she was the 2017 Women's World Championship runner-up.
Muzychuk grew up in a chess family where her younger sister Mariya (the 2015 Women's World Champion in classical chess) also became a Grandmaster. Her parents work as chess coaches, having taught her the game from when she was two years old. She soon established herself as a chess prodigy, first winning the European Youth Chess Championships at age six in the under-8 girls' category and later winning the under-10, under-12, and under-14 girls' divisions as well. She also won the World Youth Championship in the under-16 girls' category and the World Junior Championship for under-20 girls. She earned the International Master (IM) title at age 17 and the Grandmaster title at age 21.
From 2004 to 2014, Muzychuk represented Slovenia due to conflicts with the Ukrainian Chess Federation. She won an individual gold medal at the European Women's Team Chess Championship for Slovenia in 2011 and later won an individual gold medal at the Women's Chess Olympiad in 2016 after she switched federations back to Ukraine. At the former event, she had one of the best performances of her career with a score of 8½ out of 9 and a performance rating of 2782, also earning her final GM norm. Along with Susan Polgar and Magnus Carlsen, she is one of three players to win the World Rapid and World Blitz Championships in the same year, which she achieved in 2016.
Muzychuk drew widespread media attention at the end of 2017 for boycotting the World Rapid and Blitz Championships over FIDE's decision to hold the events in Saudi Arabia because of the country's discriminatory policies against women.