She defeated Natalia Pogonina of Russia by a score of 2.5:1.5 in the final match of the Sochi tournament. According to Muzychuk’s coaches, the young chess player’s victory was a truly nervous affair, as the girl could have lost motivation at the start of the event after losing her first match to a Canadian competitor. However, Muzychuk found the inner strength to get ahead over next parties. In the quarterfinals, she knocked out of the race its rating leader Humpy Koneru, thus staking out her claim for a sensational victory. She then overcame her anxiety and cold-bloodedly pressed on to victory.
The chess arbiter of the first category Sviatoslav Popovych from Lviv commented on Muzychuk’s victory for The Day: “Although the competition was held in Russia, there was no room for political machinations there. Arbiters cannot intervene in this sport, they play a minor role only. Chess is a struggle between two individuals, and the stronger one wins.” Chess champion of Ukraine Natalia Buksa shared her impressions of Muzychuk’s final party with us as well: “Marichka could win against Pogonina ahead of time, back in the third party. However, she decided not to run excessive risks and waited. Overall, she played brilliantly, acting tough and aggressive, like a man.”
While Muzychuk was returning home from Sochi, The Day talked to people who might have made the greatest contribution to the formation of the young champion as a player and human being, and learned their recipe of making sports stars.
Honored coach of Ukraine, mother of the current world chess champion, Natalia MUZYCHUK.
Your daughter won the title of the world’s best female chess player on April 5. What was her path to this victory, how do you feel now as a mother?
“My girl took to chess very early, for she has played according to all the rules, like an adult, as they say, since shortly after she turned two. My husband and I are professional coaches ourselves, alumni of Lviv State University of Physical Culture, so we opened a chess club in our hometown of Stryi and encouraged first our elder daughter Ania and later our younger Marichka to play the game. They rose up through the ranks very fast. I cannot even remember how many times Marichka has already won championships of Ukraine and Europe. After she won the bronze medal at the Youth Chess World Championship in August 2014, Marichka, although she was just 16 then, moved to adult chess competitions, and these have been at an entirely different level. With Marichka now the chess world champion, I think she has hit the peak of her career. We started on this path 20 years ago, and we are very happy to see that old dream came true.”
Photo from the website SOCHI2015.FIDE.COM
To be a high-achiever in sports, one needs constant training. How much time does Marichka devote to chess, so that she stays intellectually and physically fit?
“Chess demands a titanic effort. Marichka trains at least 6 to 8 hours a day, but before competitions, she sometimes has to spend 10 or even 12 hours at the chessboard. Just one party took five hours on average during this latest event. In addition, there are training, evening game analysis, and strategic planning session for the next day. It comes to 10 hours a day in this way. This schedule is debilitating both physically and psychologically, and when you realize that you are playing a match for the world chess crown, the pressure just hits the limits of human endurance. Most importantly, Marichka needs to relax and recover now, because the female world team chess championship will start in China in 10 days. The Ukrainian team holds the world title at the moment, so it will have to defend it. Defending a title is always more difficult than winning it in the first place.”
It seems that to deal with emotions and anxiety during chess competitions, one must be a real fighter. Please, tell us more about your daughter’s character, please.
“Marichka is a very stable and strong-willed girl with attitudes of her own. I sometimes find it difficult when I cannot convince her of something, but on the other hand, she is always self-confident and believes in herself, and it plays a decisive role sometimes in the chess confrontation. There are chess players who play very well, but are unable to mobilize the whole experience and strength of character at a critical moment. Marichka is not one of them, she is able to concentrate. In the last party with the Russian Pogonina, Marichka needed a draw to win the title, but one move had to decide it all – the fate of the match and the fate of the chess crown. Marichka had black, which means a half-move handicap at the international level, especially at the beginning of the party. When chess players are of equal strength, the first-mover advantage is even more important than it looks, because black has to equalize the game and then seize the initiative, and Marichka has coped with this task perfectly.”
