Young stars with huge talents - 22nd January 2024

The world’s seeing some great young talent from the UK at the moment.

Bodhana Sivanandan, who’s only eight, has just won best female player at a ‘blitz’ chess competition in Europe. She defeated an international master and achieved the same score as a grandmaster!

Blitz chess matches last between three and five minutes so quick decision making’s important. Sivanandan’s fairly relaxed about winning matches and just says “sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn’t.”

Another successful young person’s Luke Littler. At just 16, he made it to the finals of the World Darts Championship - the youngest person to ever do this. Littler, who’s calm like Sivanandan, kept his usual routine. Before the match, he said, “In the morning I'll go for my ham and cheese omelette.”

Then, there’s Mensa’s youngest member, Teddy Hobbs, who’s only five. He taught himself to read when he was two and he’s quickly picked up new skills since then. He already knows his times tables and is able to count to a hundred in six different languages!

However, being famous during childhood can have negative effects. They may have more opportunities, but these children can also have problems finding things in common with their own age group.

The charity SportsAid found that almost half of the young athletes they support had mental health problems. Sports stars Naomi Osaka, Simone Biles and Michael Phelps have brought up such issues from their own childhoods.

If Sivanandan suffers from nerves during competitions, it doesn’t show. “I just play the board”, she says.