From India's D Gukesh to ex-Soviet Union GM Anatoly Karpov, youngest world champions in chess history

D Gukesh has had quite the sensational year; he had become the youngest winner in the history of the Candidates Tournament, winning it before even turning 18. Later in the year, he would be the standout performer in India’s historic golden sweep at the 45th Chess Olympiad in Budapest, Hungary. His victory over China's Ding Liren in the 2024 FIDE World Chess Championship in Singapore, however, pales everything else that he has accomplished this year, to the point where it will be counted among the greatest moments in Indian chess history.

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Gukesh, after all, joined an elite club after defeating Ding in 58 moves in Game 14 of the World Championship. The game that appeared destined for a stalemate witnessed a dramatic turn of events in the last three moves, where Gukesh pounced on a massive blunder committed by the Chinese Grandmaster to win the decisive encounter. In the process, the teenager from Chennai was crowned the 18th chess world champion, winning the 2024 edition with a final scoreline of 7.5-6.5.

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In the process, Gukesh became only the second Indian to be crowned chess world champion after the legendary Viswanathan Anand, who had made history with his victory over Alexei Shirov in 2000 and would go on to win four more times. More importantly, Gukesh ended up becoming the youngest world champion in the history of chess, breaking the record previously held by the legendary Garry Kasparov that had stood for nearly 40 years.

With Gukesh making history in Singapore at the age of 18 years, 8 months and 14 days, we take a look at the next four individuals in the list of youngest chess world champions:

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Garry Kasparov

Russian and former Soviet Union GM Kasparov was the previous holder of the record for the youngest chess world champion, having achieved the feat at the age of 22 years, 6 months and 27 days when he defeated compatriot Anatoly Karpov in Moscow on 9 November, 1985.

Magnus Carlsen

Before Gukesh’s incredible feat on Thursday, current world No 1 Carlsen had nearly broken Kasparov’s record more than a decade ago during his 6.5-3.5 victory over Anand in Chennai in November 2013. The Norwegian GM, who would go on to win the world championship four more times including in a rematch against Anand the following year, achieved the feat at the age of 22 years, 11 months and 24 days – just five months short of Kasparov’s feat.

Mikhail Tal 

Former Soviet Grandmaster Tal, who would later represent Latvia after the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, had reigned as world champion for just a year after defeating fellow Soviet GM Mikhail Botvinnik in 1960, with the latter defeating him the very next year in a rematch. Tal, however, achieved the feat at the age of 23 years 5 months 28 days – which made him the youngest world champion at the time.

Anatoly Karpov

While Tal’s record would stand for another 25 years before being broken by Kasparov, it had nearly been broken by Karpov 10 years earlier during the 1975 World Championship, in which reigning American GM Bobby Fischer opted to forfeit his title to his Soviet opponent after refusing the play the best-of-24-games format that was the standard back then. As a result, Karpov became the champion at the age of 23 years 10 months 11 days, five months short of Tal’s title.