World Youth Chess Championship

The World Youth Chess Championship is a chess competition for girls and boys under the age of 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 and 18. Twelve world champions are crowned every year.

The first predecessor of the youth championship was the Cadet Championship. It started off unofficially in 1974 in France for players under 18. The 1975 and 1976 editions were also for U18. The 1976 featured very young players such as Garry Kasparov and Julian Hodgson (12+) but also players slightly older than 18, but younger than 19 such as Louis Roos. It was recognized in 1977 by FIDE as the World Championship for Cadets for players under 17. In 1981 the age limit was reduced to under 16, applicable at the start of the year the championship is played in. It was also the year in which the first girls' championship for U16 was played.

In 1979, International Year of the Child, the first edition of the World Infant Cup was played for under 14. This cup had four editions, 1979, 1980, 1981 and 1984. In 1985 the U14 event was included in the first edition of the World Youth Chess Festival for Peace. Subsequently, the age categories U10, U12 and U18 were introduced. In 1987 the festival included the sections U10, U12, U14 and U18, while the U16 was held separately. In 1988, U16 was incorporated, but U18 was held separately. It was not until 1989 that the festival included all five age categories. Later, the U16 and U18 were sometimes played at separately from the U10, U12 and U14, as was the case in 1990, 1991, 1995 and 1997. In 1997 the name of tournament was changed to the World Youth Chess Championships. The under 8 category was first introduced in 2006.

Since 2015, the event has been split into "World Cadets Chess Championship" (categories U8, U10 and U12) and "World Youth Chess Championship" (categories U14, U16 and U18). In 2015 both events were held in the same venue under the name of "World Youth and Cadets Chess Championships".

1974 – Pont-Sainte-Maxence, France, 2–13 July – The first World Cadet Championship was an Under-18 event, organised by the French chess authorities. Thirty players took part in an 11 round Swiss. Englishman Jonathan Mestel won by a one-and-a-half point margin, scoring +8−0=3. The silver and bronze medals went to Evgeny Vladimirov and Oskar Orel, respectively. Also competing were the Canadian Jean Hebert and the Lebanese Bachar Kouatly.

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