The Bulgarian “lionesses” from the national chess team became European champions after defeating the Georgian team in the final. In the last battle of her brilliant performance at the European Team Championship, the world vice-champion Nurgyul Salimova drew on the second board with the Georgian Nino Batsiashvili. After her on the first board, Antoaneta Stefanova defeated Bela Hotenashvili. She won with the white pieces on the 31st move. With the success, the team led us into the last 9th round against the current world champion by 1.5 to 0.5 points.
Bulgaria led the standings before the final round with 14 match points and were the only unbeaten team in the competition at the moment.
In the third completed match, Beloslava Krasteva lost on the 37th move with the white pieces against Salome Melia. Our bronze medalist from the under-20 world championship was unable to oppose the much more experienced Georgian. With this defeat, Georgia tied with Bulgaria and both teams had 1.5 points each so far.
The Bulgarian team was leading before the last round, but had to not lose to win the title.
Everything was decided by the duel on the fourth board between Gergana Peycheva and Leila Yavakishvili, as a draw would bring the title to Bulgaria. She managed to fight for the victory with a fantastic game and could not even believe her success.
Thus, Bulgaria defeated the current world champion Georgia by 2.5 to 1.5 points in the last 9th round of the championship in Budva, Montenegro.
Our team is captained by Petar Arnaudov and consisted of Antoineta Stefanova, Nurgyul Salimova, Victoria Radeva, Gergana Peycheva and Beloslava Krasteva
This is Bulgaria’s first ranking in the “Top 3” since the creation of the European team championship for both men (since 1957) and women (since 1992).
