Anna Muzychuk

Anna Muzychuk is the fourth woman in history to reach 2600 Elo points. Her collection features all possible ranks in rapid and blitz chess, she is also the 2017 World vice-champion.

Anna was born on February 28, 1990, in Stryi, Lviv Region, Ukraine. Her parents, chess candidate masters, were coaches – they conducted classes in the adjacent village of Ugersko, where a local sports school for children and young people was located. They made little Anya familiar with the game; a bit later, her younger sister Mariya started playing, too.

Anna Muzychuk won as many as five European youth championships, repeatedly became the winner and medalist of the world youth championships. At the age of 12, Anna became an international master and two years later, a grandmaster. In 2003, she won the Ukrainian women's championship and repeated that achievement in 2014.

Between 2003 and 2014, she represented the Slovenian Chess Federation in the international arena and then returned under the Ukrainian flag. World Women's Junior Champion (2010). Two-time World blitz champion (2014, 2016) and World rapid champion (2016). When playing on the first board of the Ukrainian national team at the World Chess Olympiad, she won silver medal in 2018 and twice received the bronze award (2014 and 2016). In 2016, she also won the gold medal for the best result on the first board.

In the 2017 World Women's Championship, A. Muzychuk made it all the way to finals, where she lost to the Chinese chess player Tan Zhongyi in a persistent struggle.

At the end of the same year, Anna Muzychuk decided to boycott the World rapid and blitz championship in Saudi Arabia despite being the current women's champion in these two disciplines. Her Facebook post on the subject broke all records in the Ukrainian sector of that social network: it collected more than 160,000 likes and was shared by more than 70,000 people.

"The age gap between me and my sister Mariya is two years and a half. Those who know us say that we're totally different. She is fast and I'm calm. But we're on really good terms. We practice together, never conflict, we just argue a little bit sometimes. A few times we played against each other in the rapid chess competitions, but I don't want to compete with my sister" (A. Muzychuk).

Anna Muzychuk holds the honorable FIDE Caissa award as the best women's chess player in 2016.