At 11, Bodhana Sivanandan has completed the requirements for chess's Woman Grandmaster title

Bodhana Sivanandan is 11 years old, plays piano and violin, and goes to middle school like anyone else — except that she is now, by the record books, the youngest British women's chess champion ever and has completed all the requirements for the Woman Grandmaster title. In August she won the British women's championship, a first at her age. In September, at the 46th Chess Olympiad in Samarkand, she played as England's top board in all 11 rounds — six wins, four draws, just one loss — and secured her third and final qualifying 'norm', the tournament performances the title demands. Her next ambition is the open Grandmaster title itself. It is a record built the slow way: one tournament, one round, one game at a time.