Mariya Muzychuk

Mariya Muzychuk, born in Lviv in 1992, is a Ukrainian chess grandmaster who was Women's World Chess Champion from April 2015 to March 2016. Her parents taught her the game at two and she played her first tournament at six. She won the girls under-10 section of the 2002 European Youth Championship and the Ukrainian women's championship in 2012 and 2013. She took the 2015 world title in a knockout event, beating Natalia Pogonina 2.5 to 1.5 in the final after earlier wins over Antoaneta Stefanova, Humpy Koneru and Harika Dronavalli, and the title also gave her the grandmaster rank. She lost it to Hou Yifan, 3 to 6, in 2016. In 2017 she declined to play the world championship in Iran in protest at being required to wear a hijab. She has won medals with Ukraine at several Women's Chess Olympiads, including gold in 2022 when she played board one, and her older sister Anna is also a leading player.