At 11, Bodhana Sivanandan Earns Third Guinness World Record

Bodhana Sivanandan is 11, and chess has never had a youngest Woman Grandmaster quite like her. The London schoolgirl, who plays for England, finished the job at the Chess Olympiad in Samarkand last month, and Guinness World Records has now made it official. It's her third Guinness title. She isn't even 12 yet.

Who Is Bodhana Sivanandan?

Bodhana was born in London on 7 March 2015 and lives in Harrow. She is a British-Indian chess prodigy . Bodhana’s father Sivanandan Velayutham, who moved over from Trichy in Tamil Nadu in 2007 so the India link runs through her dad. So, even if she's a London kid, the Tiruchirappalli roots are real.

How She Earned the Title in Samarkand

The 46th Chess Olympiad ,from 15 to 27 September, ran in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Bodhana took England's top board and played all 11 rounds, so she met the other side's best player every day. She finished on eight points.

Guinness says it was done on 26 September. She drew with Georgian Grandmaster Nana Dzagnidze in round ten, and that was enough to complete her requirements at 11 years. The mark she passed belonged to Kateryna Lagno, who got the title at 12 years and four months, so the Kateryna Lagno record fell by about nine months.

FIDE asks for three norms, which are certified title-level performances, plus a classical rating above 2,300. Bodhana had already become the youngest player to earn a Woman Grandmaster norm, at ten, so Samarkand finished something she'd been building for a while.

Her Third Guinness World Record

This is her third Guinness World Record. The first two came at ten: youngest Woman International Master, and youngest female player to beat a grandmaster in a tournament game. That second one happened in Liverpool, in the last round of the 2025 British Championships, against 60-year-old Pete Wells. She was 10 years and 5 months old.

The new record isn't in Guinness World Records 2027, because the book had already gone to print by the time. It carries her first two titles, and Guinness announced the third online.

A Season to Remember

2026 has been a busy year for her. In July, in France, she became the youngest girl to score an international master norm. In August she won the British Women's title in Coventry, the youngest ever, after a tense rapid playoff against Ireland's 14-year-old Trisha Kanyamarala. By then the crowd was cheering her on as "Godhana".

Last October she also beat former world champion Mariya Muzychuk at the European Club Cup in Rhodes.

In Her Own Words

Slowing down doesn't seem to be on her list. Of the Guinness recognition, she said it "motivates me to keep pushing myself and achieve even more." After the Olympiad she told FIDE she wanted to keep making history rather than stop there. And she still goes to school full time.

SheInspire Magazine congratulates Bodhana on this historic achievement and wishes her all the luck in the games ahead. Keep going, champion.