Meet the Legends: Harika Dronavalli

A three-time Bronze medal winner, Harika Dronavalli is one of the top players in Women’s Chess. Talking about her Chess career, Harika took to Chess when she was just eight years of age. After winning the national championship and the Silver Medal in the under-10 girls section of the World Youth National Chess Championship at the age of just 9, Harika decided to pursue chess as her career, and what a career it turned out to be!

In 2009, Harika won the Silver Medal at the World Youth National Championship and the Asian Under-12 Girls Chess Championship. She won a Bronze Medal in the 2002 World Youth National Championship and went one better, winning Gold at the Asian Under-12 Girls Chess Championship. That was not enough for her as she won another Gold Medal, this time at the Asian Under-18 Girls Chess Championship. 

By the age of just 12, Harika had become the Youngest woman International Master in Asia. Continuing her performance, Harika won a team Bronze and an Individual Gold Medal at the Asian Women's team championship. Harika earned her first set of WGM and WIM norms after she won a Silver Medal at the Commonwealth Chess Championship, and her second set came after winning a Silver Medal at the Asian Women's Championship. 

In 2004, her fame continued to rise as she became the youngest WGM in India. She achieved this feat after winning the Commonwealth Under-18 Championship. She continued her fine form in 2004 as she won her first Youth title (Gold medal at the World Youth Chess Championship) as well. 2006 was another spectacular year for Harika as she won another Gold medal in the Under-18 Girls section of the World Youth Championship. She also won a Gold medal in the Women’s Commonwealth Championship. She won 2 more Gold Medals in the Women’s Commonwealth Championship, one in 2007 and the next in 2010. 

Harika became an International Master in 2007 and won the individual Gold Medal and a Bronze Medal at the Rapid and Classical events of the Asian Indoor Games. Her Medal Cabinet grew as she won another Gold Medal at the  Asian Zonal Women's Chess Championship in 2007. For her achievements, Harika was awarded the Arjuna Award as well in the same year. 

At the age of just 17, Harika became the fourth player from India after Vishwanathan Anand, Koneru Humpy and Pentala Harikrishna to win the World Junior Championship. She won the Women’s Indian Chess Championship and then took team Silver and an individual Gold Medal as the captain of India at the 2009 Asian Women's Team Chess Championship. 

2011 was another milestone year as Harika earned the title of Grandmaster, thus becoming the second Indian woman after Koneru Humpy to earn it. The following year, Harika won a Bronze Medal at the  Women’s World Chess Championship and won a Silver medal in the team category. 

In 2015, Harika won her first-ever FIDE World Online Women's Blitz Championship. She had scored 13.5 out of 18 points, and she was tied with the Grandmaster Nana Dzagnidze, but it was Harika who won on tiebreaks.

At the Women’s World Chess Championship in 2015, she defeated Grandmasters Irina Kush and Alexandra Kosteniuk but finished the tournament with a Bronze medal. In 2016, Harika won the Chengdu Grand Prix after she just edged out Konery Humpy on tiebreaks. Her wonderful 2016 continued as she won an Individual Gold Medal at the Asian Women's Chess Championship. 

Harika was named the Chess Player of the Year 2016 by the Times of India, and she edged big names in the form of Vishwanathan Anand and Pentala Harikrishna. She won the distinction again in 2017 and was featured by Verve Magazine for being one of the top 40 most popular Women Sportspersons of the year. 

In 2019, Harika was awarded the Padma Shri, which is the fourth-highest civilian award in India. Dronavalli was a key contributor to the Indian team that shared the Gold Medal with Russia in the FIDE Online Olympiad. In 2024, Harika won the Chess Olympiad along with Vaishali R, Divya Deshmukh, Vantika Agrawal, and Tania Sachdev. With multiple youth titles, medals, and championships, Harika has already cemented her place as one of India’s greatest Chess players.