Lyudmila Rudenko: Google Doodle celebrates the famous chess player
- Lyudmila Rudenko, the chess player, has been honoured in the Google Doodle
- The World Chess Hall of Fame inductee started playing chess at the age of ten
- Rudenko pursued careers in swimming and economic planning before chess
Lyudmila Rudenko, the famous chess player, has been honoured in the Google Doodle on what would have been her 114th birthday.
The World Chess Hall of Fame inductee, who is of Ukrainian descent, started playing chess at the age of ten and not before long, she was winning championships and eventually became a Woman Grandmaster in 1976.
Despite starting out as a swimmer and then becoming an economic planner for the Soviet Union, chess started out as a hobby for her before she went on to become a champion. But who was Lyudmila Rudenko?
Lyudmila Rudenko, the famous chess player, has been honoured in a Google Doodle for July 27
Who was Lyudmila Rudenko?
Born on July 27, 1904 in Lubny, which is in the Poltava region of Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire, Lyudmila Vladimirovna Rudenko was taught how to play chess by her father.
After pursuing her swimming career, she studied economics at university in Odessa where she also became a champion in the 400m breaststroke.
Rudenko became serious about chess in 1925 and participated in her first major competition two years later in the U.S.S.R. Women’s Chess Championship, in which she place fifth, according to the World Chess Hall of Fame.
She then went on to win the Moscow Women’s Championship ahead of reigning U.S.S.R. Women’s Champion Olga Rubtsova.
In 1950, Lyudmila gained victory in the first Women’s Chess Championship, which was held after World War II.
Following this, she became the second Women’s World Chess Champion after Vera Menchik and two years later, she won the U.S.S.R. Women’s Championship.
Her biggest accolade was when she received the title of International Master in 1950 and in 1976, became a Woman Grandmaster.
What is a Google Doodle?
Lyudmila Rudenko has been honoured in the Google Doodle for July 27, 2018 on what would have been her 114th birthday.
Google Doodles are illustrations that appear in the Google logo on the search engine’s homepage. The first time that a Google Doodle was used was in 1998, when Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin visited the 1998 Burning Man Festival.
To commemorate their trip, the founders drew a stick-man standing behind the second ‘o’ in the Google logo. Recent Google Doodles include Georges Lemaitre, Fanny Durack and Ludwig Sütterlin.
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