Igor Janik scored 8 points in 11 rounds and took 12th place in the European Chess Championship that ended on Monday in Vrnjacka Banja. Three Poles were promoted to the World Cup. The gold medal was won by Russian Alexei Sarana, playing under the FIDE flag – 8.5.
The same points as Sarana, third two years ago in the European Championships in Reykjavik, were scored by the silver medalist, representative of Romania Kirill Shevchenko and 17-year-old Belgian Daniel Dardha, who stood on the lowest step of the podium.
In the last round, the 22-year-old grandmaster from Elbląg, seeded in the tournament with the number 94 (rank 2527), tied with the higher ranked fourth French chess player Etienne Bacrot (16, 2659), finally classified in fifth place.
Among the representatives of Poland who were close to the top before the last round, Grzegorz Nasuta and Szymon Gumularz also won the promotion to the World Cup – 7.5 points each. The first (89, 2535) at the end of the tournament defeated the second GM of Serbia Aleksandar Indjic (24, 2636) with black. This gave him a total of 7.5 points and a 20th place in the tournament. He was closely followed by Gumularz (72, 2558), undefeated in Vrnjacka Banja, who drew black with Benjamin Gledura (23, 2637) from Hungary.
