China's Xu Yuhua roars to women's crown!
China China China
China’s Xu Yuhua defeated Alisa Galliamova in the final of the FIDE Women’s World Championship. Photo by ChessBase.

China's Xu Yuhua defeated Alisa Galliamova in the final of the FIDE Women's World Championship. Photo by ChessBase.

For the past 16 years, China has steadily built a chess powerhouse and added to that legacy when Xu Yuhua captured the Women's World Championship in Moscow, Russia earlier this week. She becomes the third Chinese to win the crown preceded by Xie Jun (winning in 1991-1996 and then 1999-2001) and Zhu Chen (winning in 2001).

This trend bodes well for China since they are grooming a young cadre of young men and women to inherit the reigns of chess. The country is loaded with female talent as 21-year old
Zhao Xue hopes to bring more gold to China with 12-year old Hou Yifan waiting in the wings. Chinese women have thoroughly dominated women's play in Olympiad tournaments having bagged eight medals in the past eight tournaments (1990-2004). They are the first federation to have accomplished this feat! (Source: Olimpbase.com)

There is no indication of what the 2006 Olympiad team will consist of, but the possibility of having three World Champions on one team has not been seen since the days of the Soviet chess machine in the 60s. Xu will take her crown to Turin, Italy and hopefully help China to a fifth consecutive Olympiad title.

Posted by The Chess Drum: 29 March 2006