Aleksandra Goryachkina

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 consolidated gains 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 Arctic Circle. Aleksandra started to work with a famous coach and grandmaster Vladimir Belov. Aleksandra Goryachkina made a breakthrough again: 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 main contenders. 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 made her debut in the Superfinal of the Russian Championship. In her fight against the best Russian female chess players, it took Goryachkina three attempts to achieve her goal: Aleksandra came first 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 made her debut 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, 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 finished on the second place in that tournament.