Beautiful Closing Ceremony

The Women`s World Chess Championship 2008 in Nalchik ended with a closing ceremony where the President of Kabardino-Balkaria, Arcen Kanokov and FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov awarded the winners of the Championship.

On the third place came Pia Cramling (Sweden) and Humpy Koneru (India). The youngest-ever finalist Hou Yifan (China) has been warmly greeted by the audience. The longest applause was, naturally, given to the Champion, Alexandra Kosteniuk from Russia. All the prizes were presented and the Champion was really crowned with a very beautiful and valuable crown, hand-made here in Kabardino-Balkaria.

The winners were greeted by speeches from the Presidents and the Champion was also congratulated by the special message of Dmitry Medvedev, President of Russia in which he appraised the performance of Alexandra Kosteniuk and the hard work she has done to achieve such a valuable victory.

At the first moments of the ceremony, the national orchestra played traditional national music under the world-known conductor Boris Temirkanov. The second part included dance ensembles showing a wide variety of national dances to the audience. See the photos of the closing ceremony