Kateryna Lahno, 15, European Women's Champion

The European Individual Women's Championship was held from June 10 – June 25 2005 in the Republic Palace in Chisinau, Moldova. The championship was a 12 round Swiss, with a rate of play of 40 moves in 1½ hours, plus 15 minutes to finish the game. There was an increment of 30 seconds per move from the first move on.

Participants of the EIWCC in Chisinau [photo: official web site]

After twelve rounds of play there were two winners: Kateryna Lahno and Nadezhda Kosintseva, both with 9/12. In the tiebreak match that followed Kateryna defeated Nadezhda in both their rapid (15'+10") games to take the title of European Individual Women's Champion 2005. Elena Dembo of Greece won the tie-break for the Bronze medal.

Key game: Kateryna Lahno vs Viktorija Cmilyte in round 11, won by Lahno

A quick draw in the last round against Elina Danielian

The decisive tiebreak games between Kateryna Lahno and Nadezhda Kosintseva

The new European Champion, whose name is originally Ekaterina Lagno, is 15, hails from Lvov but has spent most of her life in the industrial and chess-friendly town of Kramatorsk. Recently she moved to Donetsk, where the Ukraine company Danko is sponsoring her.

The European Championship yielded 18 passes to the Women's World Championship. Some of the top scorers had already qualified in other events, so that the first nineteen players in this event – that is everyone with eight points or more, secured a place, with three additional passes left over. That meant that all players with 7½ points, except those who were pre-qualified, had to play a tiebreak for these three places. They went to IM Almira Skripchenko and WGMs Anna Ushenina and Natasa Bojkovic.

In the following you will find the final standings of all 164 players and a big photo report with pictures sent to us by our correspondent Mikhail Golubev.

Final standing

• All games (240 KB zipped PGN)
• Official web site

Photo Gallery by Mikhail Golubev

IM Tatiana Kosintseva, 2486, RUS	IM Kateryna Lahno, 2467, UKR
IM Nadezhda Kosintseva, 2459, RUS	IM Viktorija Cmilyte, 2459, LTU
WGM Natasa Bojkovic, 2371, SCG	IM Yelena Dembo, 2402, GRE
GM Peng Zhaoqin, 2392, NED	WGM Svetlana Matveeva, 2423, RUS
IM Almira Skripchenko, 2453, FRA	WGM Anna Ushenina, 2350, UKR
WGM Zdebskaja Natalia 2344 UKR	WGM Elena Zaiatz, 2398, RUS
IM Elina Danielian, 2415, ARM	WIM Irina Vasilevich, 2347, RUS
IM Masha Klinova, 2391, ISR	IM Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant, 2452, GEO
IM Corina-Isabela Peptan, 2435, ROM	WIM Carmen Voicu, 2310, ROM
IM Elisabeth Paehtz, 2407, GER	IM Inna Gaponenko, 2482, UKR
WGM Dagne Ciuksyte, 2356, LTU	WGM Tatiana Kononenko, 2416, UKR
WIM Sveta Cherednichenko, 2230, UKR	WIM Ana-Cristina Calotescu, 2268, ROM
WIM Sharevich Anna, 2278, BLR	IM Elena Sedina, 2422, ITA
WGM Tatiana Grabuzova, 2327, RUS	Kateryna Dolzhikova, 2232, UKR

All photos in the above report (unless otherwise specified) are by GM Mikhail Golubev. He is the chess observer for the Ukrainian newspaper Komanda, author of the books Easy Guide to the Dragon and The Sicilian Sozin. Mikhail lives in Odessa, Ukraine and writes for Chess Today. Mikhail Golubev's Chess Page

Links

• The ladies battle it out in Moldova
• Six players lead in Moldova Women's Championship
• Move over Judit, here comes Kateryna!
• Young Kateryna wins GM tournament
• ChessBase quiz: Who are your favourite players?
• Result: Who are your favourite players?
• Kateryna at the Aeroflot Open in February 2003