The European Chess Championship, which ended in Katowice, Poland, ended with a huge sensation. The winner of the competition was 17-year-old Ukrainian Roman Degtyarev, who scored 9 out of 11 points in the final score and won 20,000 euros in prize money (last year, Ukraine won the European Team Championship).
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With only the 126th rating out of 501 participants in the European Championship and not even being a grandmaster (international master), the young Kharkiv native won eight games (six of them against grandmasters!) with two draws and a single defeat to Turk Isik Can. Having defeated the experienced Spaniard David Guijarro on the 42nd move in the decisive match, Degtyarev overtook Azerbaijani Nijat Abbasov (8.5 points) and his compatriot Suleiman Suleimanli (8.5) on the podium, and also became the first European champion in history who does not have the title of grandmaster.
Interestingly, before the triumph in Katowice, Roman Degtyarev's highest achievement was the title of champion of Ukraine in 2024.
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By the way, one of the first to congratulate the European champion was the famous Ukrainian chess player Pavlo Elyanov, who said that after the full-scale Russian invasion, Roman refused to leave his native Kharkiv.
“When the war broke out in early 2022, I tried to help several Ukrainian families move to Europe. In one case, everything was organized for a family from Kharkiv — until their 14-year-old son, a talented chess player, refused to go at the last minute. He didn't want to leave his father.
He stayed in one of the most dangerous places in Ukraine. With very limited travel opportunities and almost no practice, he still became the champion of Ukraine. Now he has grown up – and has just created the biggest sensation in the history of the European Championship! Remember this name: Roman Degtyarev! It's not for nothing that our city of Kharkiv is called reinforced concrete,” Pavlo Elyanov wrote on the social network X.
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We should add that the chess players who took the top 20 places at the European Championship won tickets to the FIDE World Cup. It is gratifying that among them, in addition to Degtyarev, were Anton Korobov and the legendary Vasyl Ivanchuk, who just closed the top twenty.
Previously, “FACTS” reported that the outstanding chess player who fought for the world crown with Karpov had died.
Photo European Chess Union
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