British chess prodigy Bodhana Sivanandan has etched her name in the record books with a series of extraordinary achievements at just 10 years old. Born in London to Tamil parents from India, Bodhana began playing chess during the COVID-19 lockdown and quickly rose to prominence. She first made headlines in 2022 when she became England’s first world youth champion in 25 years, winning all 32 games across classical, rapid, and blitz formats in the Under-8 category. In 2023, at only eight, she stunned the chess world by clinching the top female prize at the European Blitz Championship in Zagreb, outperforming seasoned grandmasters and scoring an impressive performance rating of 2316. By age nine, she became the youngest person ever to represent England in any international sport, playing for the national women’s team at the Chess Olympiad in Budapest. In 2025, Bodhana set two more historic records—becoming the youngest player in history to achieve a Woman Grandmaster norm, surpassing legends like Judit Polgár and Hou Yifan, and later, at the British Chess Championship, defeating grandmaster Peter Wells at just 10 years, 5 months, and 3 days old, making her the youngest female to beat a GM in tournament play. Her meteoric rise has drawn praise from leading chess figures, with experts predicting she could become one of the greatest players in the game’s history.