Uzbekistan Has a New National Hero. Please, Nobody Tell the President Yet.

Somewhere in Tashkent right now, people are refreshing chess websites with the same intensity usually reserved for election results. Javokhir Sindarov — 21 years old, Uzbek, currently unstoppable — just beat Wei Yi in Round 6 of the FIDE Candidates 2026. His fourth consecutive win. His fifth-and-a-half point from six rounds. A tournament full of the world's best grandmasters, and one man from Central Asia is making it look like a formality.

Uzbekistan has been quietly building toward this moment for a decade — investing in chess the way other small nations invest in oil futures, patiently, with enormous faith in the return. Sindarov is that return. He arrived at this tournament like a rumor and is leaving it, round by round, as a fact.

The only real danger now isn't his opponents. It's the phone call. Heads of state have a habit of reaching out to their suddenly famous athletes mid-competition, with congratulations that are warm, patriotic, and absolutely not helpful for concentration.

A lot of chess left. Someone in the presidential office, please: let the man finish.

Photo: FIDE