World Under 14 Champ Kayden Troff and Garry Kasparov
Four US players earned medals at the World Youth Championships in Maribor, Slovenia including Kayden Troff & Sam Sevian, who took gold in Under 14 and Under 12 Open sections, respectively. Cameron Wheeler won the silver medal in the Under 12 Open while Christopher Shen earned bronze in Under 8 Open. See full results of our 80+ delegation on chess results.com. Overall, Team USA won third place behind Russia and India.
Garry Kasparov awarding Cameron Wheeler his silver medal
Writer & Kasparov aide Mig Greengard @chessninja tweeted about Kayden, "Kasparov was just giving Kayden big ups for his play, especially the round nine win."
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Kayden Troff, Photo Cathy Rogers
Here is Kayden's clutch victory, which allowed him to leapfrog into first place (on tiebreaks over his final round opponent).
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Here is one of Sevian's games, against another talented American, Jeffrey Xiong (who finished in 14th).
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You can find more pgn files on the latest TWIC or on chessresults.com.
Michael Khodarkovsky, head of the US delegation, said: "Congratulations to all coaches and members of the US team." The coaching team included GMs Ben Finegold, Joel Benjamin, Nick De Firmian, John Fedorowicz, Alejandro Ramirez, Gennady Zaitchik, Sam Palatnik, FM Aviv Friedman, IMs Armen Ambartsoumian, Andranik Matikozyan, John Bartholomew & Jan van de Mortel. For a coach's perspective of last round jitters, see Ramirez's report from Sunday morning.
Jennifer Yu, 11th in the Under 10 Girls, Photo Cathy Rogers
Christopher Shen, bronze medallist in Under 8 Open , Photo Cathy Rogers
Annie Wang, 9th in Under 10 Girls, Photo Cathy Rogers