Cercle d’Échecs Gambit Bonnevoie is proud to announce that our own Ema Jakša has won the gold medal at the European Youth Rapid Chess Championship 2026, topping the Girls U12 category outright.
The event, part of the European Youth Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships 2026, was held in Rzeszów, Poland, and brought together nearly 1,000 young players from across the continent. Ema went through the nine-round Rapid event with a final score of 8/9 points, finishing a full point clear of the field to take the title as sole winner — no tiebreaks required. Bao Anh Angelina Nguyen Doan (POL) and Maria Kinash (UKR), who tied for second on 7/9, completed the podium in silver and bronze respectively.
This is not Ema’s first European crown. Playing for Slovenia and a member of Gambit Bonnevoie, she won the Girls U10 Rapid title in Prague in 2024 with a perfect 9/9 score, adding bronze in Blitz and a fourth place in Standard the same year — all narrowly decided on tiebreaks. Since then she has continued to climb: a fourth-place finish in Blitz at last year’s Europeans in Thessaloniki, and a standout run at the FIDE World U9–U17 Championships in Antalya, where she finished 6th in Rapid and 4th in Blitz in the Girls U11 category, drawing along the way with a multiple-time youth world champion.
Two European titles in three age categories, a growing list of world-level results, and a rating trajectory that keeps pointing upward — Ema Jakša is establishing herself among the very best young players of her generation in Europe.
The entire Gambit Bonnevoie family congratulates Ema and her coaches on this outstanding achievement — bravo, champion!
Source: European Chess Union, europechess.org
