Only 12 places were qualified for the world championship 2006, while the composition of the tournament was very smooth. The majority of European top women players came here, almost all the winners of the previous championships and a lot of young players. The players from Germany, Poland and Russia prevailed in the starting list. There were 16 Russian players but only three of them succeeded in qualifying among the 12 best players.
Peng Zhaoqin, a Chinese player who represents Netherlands by now, firmly took the lead from very start of competition having scored 5 points in first 5 rounds! She was the only one player to head the tournament table in a proud solitude and passed through the entire tournament without defeats obtaining 7 wins and 5 draws. However, it was not sufficient for the final victory!
Quite a large group tightly followed the leader being only .5 points behind during the whole tournament. In round 10 Alexandra Kosteniuk caught up with the leader after having defeated Antoinette Stefanova. Both players won in the last round and shared 1-2 places.
Thus it took a tie-break to define the European women champion. And it was Muscovite Alexandra Kosteniuk, who demonstrated violent thrust, energy, high velocity of play and, of course, champion's fortune! Both winners were awarded with the male GM title. We congratulate them!
4 players scored .5 points less than the winners - A. Stefanova, N. Zhukova, N. Dzagnidze and I. Slavina.
8 players more scored 8 points each and they had to compete for 6 qualifying places for the world championship.