14 year old Indian makes GM norm at World Juniors

A 14 year old Indian has made his first grandmaster norm at the 50th World Junior now being played in Chennai, India. Koushik Girish who is currently a FIDE master achieved the norm after nine rounds. Another Indian Vidit Santosh Gujrathi and Italian Axel Rombaldoni also made their grandmaster norms. For the former, it is already his second norm.

Once upon a time, the World Junior was the fast track to a Grandmaster title as the winner automatically awarded it. Kasparov himself won the championship in 1980 and was given the title (although he had grandmaster norms from other tournaments).

Nowadays youngsters are becoming GM and then playing the World Junior. At the current championship I counted nineteen grandmasters.

Another testatment to the strength of the juniors are that US GM Ray Robson and Russian GM Sugirov Sanan who both are top juniors in their own countries are not in the running for the first place. They are in 6th and 29th position after ten rounds. The lead belongs to GM  Robert Hovhannisyan from Armenia who has 8.5 points.

Malaysian participant Lim Zhuo Ren has four points , still under 50%.