Maxime Vachier-Lagrave: World Junior Champion
Sergei Zhigalko led or co-led from round 4 all the way to the finish, but despite this it was Maxime Vachier-Lagrave who won the World Junior Championship title on tiebreaks. From rounds 2-6 they had the exact same score, and the rest of the way (excepting round 9) there was an alternation between Zhigalko’s being half a point ahead and their being tied. In round 7, Zhigalko won and Vachier-Lagrave drew; in round 8, the opposite. In round 10 Zhigalko won, in round 11 they were tied, and the same pattern occurred in rounds 12 and 13. Normally this would greatly favor Zhigalko in the tiebreaks, as a player in the higher score group would normally play stronger opponents, but it didn’t happen this time – or didn’t happen enough to give Zhigalko the overall victory. In the end, the players both had 10.5/13, but with his last round victory over Dmitry Andreikin, top seed Vachier-Lagrave won the title.
Zhigalko, obviously, came in second, and then there was a huge gap – a point and a half! – to the next score group. Three players had nine points – Michal Olszewski, Ivan Popov (who drew with Zhigalko in the last round), and Alex Lenderman. (The other U.S. representative, Ray Robson, finished with 7.5.) The nine-pointers are given in tiebreak order, so Olszewski was the bronze medalist. Congratulations to the winners!
(Final crosstable here.)
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