Person of day   -  10 MAY 2022

PAVEL ELJANOV

PAVEL ELJANOV

Pavel was born into a chess family. His father, Vladimir Eljanov, was a strong master, a renowned trainer and a publisher of multiple chess bestsellers, starting from books by Mark Dvoretsky and Iosif Dorfman and ending with books by lesser-known authors. 

Pavel quickly became one of the leading juniors of his country and in 1999, he won the U16 Olympiad with the Ukrainian national team. This victory was the forerunner of the emergence of a new generation of Ukrainian chess players in the global elite. In 2001, Eljanov became a grandmaster and played in the Ukrainian championship for the first time, where he split fourth place. 

Two years later, Pavel made his debut for his national team in the European championship. Ukraine came fifth and won the Olympiad a year later in sensational fashion. Pavel Eljanov also won gold at the 2010 Olympiad, bronze in 2012 and silver in 2016, when he played on the first board. At the 2009 European team championship, he showed the best result on the first board and he led his team to the third place. The grandmaster ha also has silver and bronze medals of the World team championships. 

Pavel graduated from Kharkov’s Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University, whose chess team he often led to the title of the Ukrainian champion. He won the B tournament in Wijk aan Zee in 2007 and in 2012, he split 1st-3rd places at Aeroflot Open but came second, behind Mateusz Bartel, due to the inferior tie-break. After winning a stage of the FIDE Grand Prix in 2010, he became sixth in the world and first in Ukraine with a rating of 2761. 

He was assistant to Boris Gelfand in the World Championship Match against Vishy Anand in Moscow in 2012. He is the two-time winner of the European Cup with Saratov’s Economist. He won tournaments in Polanica-Zdrój in 2000, Biel in 2004, Amsterdam in 2005, Montreal in 2006, Sarajevo in 2009 and Elsinore in 2010.

He is married and has a daughter.