Sergey Karjakin

Sergey Karjakin, born on 12 January 1990, is a Russian chess grandmaster and politician who was a child prodigy. He became a grandmaster at 12 years and 7 months, a record for the youngest ever that stood for 19 years. He won the World U12 Championship in 2001 and played for Ukraine in the 2004 Chess Olympiad, winning team and individual gold, before transferring to Russia. He won the 2012 World Rapid Championship, the Norway Chess tournament in 2013 and 2014, and the Chess World Cup in 2015, which led to the 2016 Candidates Tournament, which he won. In November 2016 he lost the World Chess Championship match to Magnus Carlsen in rapid tiebreaks after six drawn classical games. After he publicly approved the Russian invasion of Ukraine he was banned from Grand Chess Tour events and from FIDE-rated play for six months. In 2024 he became a senator for Crimea.