2024 was an exceptionally eventful year for Indian sport. At the end of the year, ESPN India picks ten images that tell the story of the most stunning moments we witnessed in the last 12 months. Our fourth pick is a moment that has been etched in chess history -- when D Gukesh became the youngest world champion.
Dommaraju Gukesh always rearranges the chess pieces back on his side of the board after every game ends. It's a matter of routine for him: win, loss, tie... before he gets up from the board, he needs to have arranged those pieces back in their proper places. He always, always does this and the routine never wavers -- unsmiling, he arranges the pieces quickly, gets up, goes. Except on December 12, 2024, there was something different about this most mundane practice of his.
His hands were trembling. His eyes were tearing up...
This struck immediately because Gukesh doesn't show emotion at the chess board: that's just how he is wired. There are a few stock expressions -- staring intently at the board, closed eye meditative-state, head-in-hands, and sometimes he walks up and paces around the board, hands crossed -- but that's about it. He had controlled his emotions when Ding Liren had made a bad mistake, a proper blunder that handed him the World Championship on a platter. There was a bit of a gasp before he got up and paced the board in that inimitable style of his but nothing extra. No smile. No exuberant celebration. Take a sip of water, hands shaking just a bit. Make the right moves. Wait for the inevitable resignation.
It'd been a staggeringly tough World Championship, a best-of-14 marathon that had gone the distance. For all money, it looked like only tiebreakers would sort the matter out. So, when Ding made the mistake, it would have been understandable if Gukesh had burst out in celebration. This here was an 18-year-old, living out his childhood fantasy and yet, he was remaining calm. Like this was just another sparring session with the boys back home in Chennai. Once the resignation came, once the hands were shaken, he sat there for a bit, head in hands trying to fully grasp what he had just done. How he'd become the youngest world champion his sport had ever known.
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Ladies and gentlemen, the 18th WORLD CHAMPION! #DingGukesh pic.twitter.com/CgzYBgeTfq- International Chess Federation (@FIDE_chess) December 12, 2024
He then looked up... and before doing anything, started re-arranging the pieces. Except this time, he wasn't quick. The pieces were barely finding their squares, and they were doing so slowly. His hand was trembling, the pieces shaking vigorously. His eyes were tearing up, blurring out everything in front of him. For the first time in his life, he was rearranging those pieces as World Champion.
The fact that he still did it, that he had the discipline to follow that utterly mundane routine of his, while seemingly barely able to function as all the pent-up emotion started to burst through his iron façade -- that was a rather delightful touch on what was a monumental day for him, and indeed, Indian sport.