Then Etienne Bacrot and Ruslan Ponomariov met in the first final match. The French player defeated the Ukrainian favorite becoming the first winner of the tournament. Much water has flowed under the bridges since then, Ruslan won the FIDE world title. He does not play in such competitions anymore. And Etienne did took part in this year's competition, which is the final one for him - it was his twentieth birthday this January.
This time Bacrot was a favorite. The other players were the English Luke McShane, the Azerbaijan Shakhriar Mamedyarov, Arkady Najdic (Germany), the Ukrainian Sergei Kariakin, the German lady grandmaster Elisabeth Pahtz and the sole FIDE master Severin Papa (all other players had the grandmaster title).
The most surprising fact about the competition was that there were no surprises at all. Players with higher rating eliminated ones with lower rating on regular basis. Only Najdic's win over Kariakin with 2-0 score in round 1 deserves mentioning. The difference in ratings of the players was minimal. This pattern repeated itself in round 2, the semi-final one: McShane beat Mamedyarov and Bacrot defeated Najdic.
However, the rating favorite failed to do it in the final round - McShane defeated Bacrot becoming the winner of LYM-2003.

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