D Gukesh officially crowned youngest chess world champion in Singapore a day after beating Ding Liren; watch video

Indian teen sensation D Gukesh was officially crowned the 18th chess world champion on Friday, a day after his sensational victory over Chinese Grandmaster Ding Liren in Game 14 of the FIDE World Chess Championship in Singapore. The closing ceremony took place on Friday evening in Singapore (3.30 pm in India), the day when the tie-breaks would have taken place in the Rapid and Blitz formats had Ding and Gukesh played out a draw in the final Classical game on Thursday.

Watch Gukesh getting crowned as the 18th world champion here:

The new World Champion… Gukesh D! 🇮🇳♟️🏆#DingGukesh pic.twitter.com/Y6tbl0CwPh

— International Chess Federation (@FIDE_chess) December 13, 2024

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“I mean this moment, it feels like I have lived it a million times. Every morning when I woke up, this moment was the reason I woke up. To hold this trophy and this reality means more than anything else in my life,” the graceful teenager said in his acceptance speech after being presented with his gold medal and the trophy that came with a US$ 1.3 million reward.

“This journey has been nothing short of a dream. There have been many ups and down, many challenges, but I wouldn’t change a single thing that has happened and it has been beautiful because of the kind of people I have had with me,” he said in the FIDE closing ceremony.

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The 2024 FIDE World Championship appeared set to be decided in tie-breaks with Game 14 heading towards a draw. The 18-year-old Grandmaster, however, capitalised on a Championship-defining blunder from Ding in his 55th move to seal the deal in a space in quick time and become only the second world champion from India after Viswanathan Anand.

In the process, Gukesh also ended up breaking Garry Kasparov's record for the youngest world champion that the Russian and ex-Soviet GM had set in 1985 and had held for nearly four decades.

Also Read | Vishy Anand Exclusive: ‘Gukesh handled the setbacks well. His journey is remarkable’

Gukesh had heaped praise on Ding during the post-match press conference on Thursday, calling the 32-year-old Chinese GM a “real world champion” and did so once again while accepting the winner’s trophy in the closing ceremony on Friday.

“I would also like to thank my opponent Ding Liren, He is, in my eyes, a true champion and we saw that despite a lot of pressure on him, he was able to put on a huge fight,” Gukesh added during the closing ceremony.

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Gukesh’s triumph in the World Championship was the icing on the cake in what has been an extraordinary run for more than a year. It began with him dislodging five-time world champion and his mentor Anand as the world's top-ranked Indian player in August last year. And in April this year, Gukesh would end up becoming the youngest winner in the history of the Candidates Tournament .

He would later play a starring role in India’s historic golden sweep in the Chess Olympiad in Budapest, Hungary, registering wins in eight out of 10 rounds with the remaining two ending in a draw and winning individual gold in Board 1 as a result.