The Ukrainian Chess Federation has concluded its Women’s National Team selection tournament in Uzhgorod, confirming the first wave of players destined for the 2026 Samarkand Olympiad. The nine-players round-robin event, held from 11–19 March in Uzhgorod, offered three qualifying spots, with the three remaining places to be determined by the January 2026 FIDE rating list.
The story of the week was undoubtedly 15-year-old WFM Anastasiia Hnatyshyn. Despite an opening-round defeat to the top-seeded WGM Anastasiya Rakhmangulova, the youngster strongly stroke back to finish on 6/9 points. Along the way, she made remarkable upsets defeating IM Inna Gaponenko, WGM Evgeniya Doluhanova, and the former European Champion GM Natalia Zhukova. While WGM Anastasiya Rakhmangulova took gold on tie-breaks, Hnatyshyn’s silver medal marks a clinical debut for the national side.
Another notable performance came from the untitled Tetyana Skarbarchuk. The 19-year-old from Lviv remained unbeaten throughout the event, finishing third with 5 points after securing crucial wins against the higher-rated Zhukova and Gaponenko.
Final rankings:
- WGM Anastasia Rakhmangulova (FIDE rating 2359), 6 points
- WFM Anastasiia Hnatyshyn (FIDE rating 2164), 6 points
- Tetyana Skarbarchuk (FIDE rating 2236), 5 points
- Liudmyla Ivanytska (FIDE rating 2133), 4.5 points
- GM Natalia Zhukova (FIDE rating 2319), 4.5 points
- IM Inna Gaponenko (FIDE rating 2323), 3 points
- WIM Bozhena Piddubna (FIDE rating 2288), 2.5 points
- WGM Evgeniya Doluhanova (FIDE rating 2202), 2.5 points
- WFM Yevheniia Toroptseva (FIDE rating 2103), 2 points
Attention now turns to the rating-based selections. While GM Anna Muzychuk, GM Mariya Muzychuk, and IM Yuliia Osmak are the frontrunners on paper, the participation of the Muzychuk sisters is uncertain and not yet confirmed by the Ukrainian Chess Federation. Having led Ukraine to gold in Chennai 2022, Anna and Mariya Muzychuk were notably absent from the 2024 Budapest Olympiad and European Teams Events in 2023 and 2025. Should they decline the call-up for Samarkand, GM Anna Ushenina and IM Nataliya Buksa are next in the line to fill the vacancies.
Photos from the tournament by Ukrainian Chess Federation
