David Navara and Alexandra Kosteniuk won the 2022 European Blitz Championship
David Navara and Alexandra Kosteniuk are the 2022 European Blitz Champions for the Open and Women Championships respectively, with David winning due to the tiebreaks criteria.
The European Open and Women Rapid & Blitz Chess Championships 2022 started yesterday in “Spodek” Sport and Entertainment Centre in Katowice, Poland with more than 830 players from 38 countries, making it one of the biggest chess events in the world!
GM David Navara won the Open Championship after a surprising final round. David was in a completely drawish rooks endgame against GM Valery Kazakouski who blundered mate in 1 for David to reach 17.5 points and tie for the first place with GM Maciej Klekowski and GM Shant Sargsyan. Tiebreaks criteria determined David as gold, Klekowski as silver and Sargsyan as bronze medalists.
Women’s event was merged with the Open section and the best-ranked female player would become the European Women’s Blitz Champion. GM Alexandra Kosteniuk won the title with 15.5 points, followed by IM Aleksandra Maltsevskaya with 15 points and GM Antoaneta Stefanova with 14 points and the best tiebreak criteria.
Τheodoros Tsorbatzoglou, Secretary General of the European Chess Union sent his message to Poland via Twitter saying “The whole Poland is a key area of Chess development. Keep co-operating to bring more positive results.”
