World Rapid Championship: Magnus clinches title; Erigaisi, Humpy settle for bronze

Magnus Carlsen and Aleksandra Goryachkina emerged as the winners at the World Rapid Chess Championship here on Sunday.

For India, Arjun Erigaisi and Koneru Humpy won bronze in the open and women’s sections, respectively.

Defending champion Humpy had, in fact, tied for first place, scoring 8.5 points, the same as Goryachkina and Zhu Jiner. The Russian and the Chinese, however, had superior tie-break scores. They faced off in the tie-breaker, in which Goryachkina triumphed.

India’s B. Savitha Shri had a superb tournament. She finished fourth after starting out as the 67th seed. R. Vaishali was fifth, Divya Deshmukh eighth, and D. Harika 19th.

In the open event, Carlsen was the clear first. The Norwegian finished with 10.5 points, one more than the second-placed Vladislav Artemiev of Russia. Arjun also scored 9.5 points, but had to contend for third place.

Aravindh Chithambaram was the next best-placed Indian. He finished 16th, scoring 8.5 points. Nihal Sarin was placed 19th, one slot ahead of the reigning World classical chess champion D. Gukesh. R. Praggnanandhaa was 28th.

The players, however, have a chance to perform better over the next couple of days at the World Blitz Championship.

Published on Dec 28, 2025