Athlete of the Week

Chess player Bogdan Deac is Athlete of the Week on RRI

Ștefan Baciu, 19.12.2023, 13:45

Grandmaster Bogdan Deac won the bronze medal at the European Rapid & Blitz Chess Championship, organized at the end of last week in the capital of Croatia, Zagreb. He scored 9 points from 11 games, being overtaken by Alexey Sarana, a 23-year-old Russian grandmaster who now represents Serbia and who won the title of European champion with 9.5 points. The silver medal went to the Armenian grandmaster Haik Martirosyan, also with 9 points like Bogdan Deac, but who outranked the Romanian chess player in the tie-breaking criteria. Also worth mentioning is the performance of grandmaster David Gavrilescu who, in his last junior year, managed to rank 6th in the Championship in Zagreb, in which 439 players from 40 countries participated. Romania was represented by 9 players, including grandmaster Irina Bulmagă, the best lady chess player in our country, ranked 65th, with 7 points from 11 games.

The 10th seed, Bogdan Deac, finished the European Rapid & Blitz Chess Championship without defeat. He achieved 7 wins and drew another four matches, two of them with the new European champion Alexey Sarana and the new European runner-up Haik Martirosyan. Another game ended in a tie was the one in the last round with David Gavrilescu. For his performance, Radio Romania International declares Bogdan Deac Athlete of the Week.

Bogdan-Daniel Deac was born on October 8, 2001 in Râmnicu Vâlcea and is ranked 42nd among the best chess players in the world. He attained the title of grandmaster at the age of 14 years, 7 months and 27 days, setting the record for the youngest grandmaster in the world at the time. He is registered at CSU ASE Bucharest, a team that this year ranked second in the national Superleague.