Olga Badelka to Join the Women's Russian Team

We publish Sergei Rublevsky's and her comments.

We are happy to announce that joining our women's national team is an international master Olga Badelka, 20 years of age, who switched from Belarus to the Chess Federation of Russia in the autumn of 2021. Now the athlete is undergoing the process of acquiring Russian citizenship. 
 
Senior coach of the Russian women's team, GM Sergei Rublevsky: "Olga is a very strong and up-and-coming chess player. She has constantly honed her skills in recent years and will undoubtedly become a very important asset for our national team and a worthy replacement of Alexandra Kosteniuk. She's already been training together with our team." 
 
Olga Badelka, "I will be very happy to fly the colours of the Russian national team – one of the strongest teams in the world and known to be an extremely demanding one to qualify into. With so much competition as is in Russia, you have to fight for your place on the national team. I hope that when technical issues are in the way no longer, I will be able to compete for the national team. This is even more so now that the transition to Asia should give us new tournaments, including team ones."  
 
For Info:
 
Olga Badelka, International Master (2019), Women's Grandmaster (2019). Many-time champion of Belarus in various age groups, European U-16 champion. Winner of the European Club Championship and the Russian Rapid and Blitz Club Championships as a member of the Southern Urals team.