Ukrainian Teenager Seeded 126 Becomes Europe's First Ever Non-GM Champion

Amid the all-consuming drama of the FIDE Candidates Tournament in Cyprus, the European Individual Championships kicked off last week. Outside true chess afficionados, it barely got a mention.

But that shouldn't have been the case. The 11-round Swiss, which bestows the prestigious title of European Champion, is always keenly-fought and the 2026 edition held in Katowice, Poland, was no different.

Its final round saw an upset for the ages as the virtually unknown IM Roman Dehtiarov, ranked 992 in the world and seeded 126 in the event, stormed to victory against GM David Anton Guijarro to secure the title outright with 9/11 points.

Dehtiarov is now the European Chess Union's champion. Rated just 2452 going into the event, he put in a stunning Super GM-level 2781 tournament performance rating to finish with eight wins and 0.5 points ahead of the runner-up GM Nijat Abasov.

The field was stacked with grandmasters, with positions 2 to 19 behind him all holding the highest title in chess. One of them was a better known Ukrainian, the 2621-rated GM Vasyl Ivanchuk.

"Wow, what a story!" said GM Boris Avrukh, the Israeli-American former World Under-12 champion.

"What’s incredible is that I’ve been following chess tournaments very closely for years and I’d never seen his name before. Starting from round three, he was playing strong grandmasters round after round. This wasn’t luck — this is a new star. Congratulations, Roman!"

In total, there were a record with 501 participants at the European Individual Chess Championships from 43 European federations.

Was this as big a shock as GM Javokhir Sindarov winning the Candidates? Sindarov went into his event with real pedigree having won the FIDE World Cup last year to qualify. Dehtiarov won the Ukrainian championship in 2024, but in world terms he was a minnow. Not now.

Dehtiarov's achievement make him the only non-GM to ever win the European Individual Championship since it began in 2000. He is also no longer a "mere" IM—Dehtiarov earned himself the automatic GM title, plus €20,000 in prize money.