Thunderbird at ASU professor wins gold in world chess championship

Anjelina Belakovskaia was teaching a finance course on Zoom at midnight when most of Albania was asleep. From a resort on the Adriatic Sea, many time zones away from her class, this nontraditional schedule was all for a monumental goal.

The Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University associate teaching professor led the USA Women 50+ Team to a gold medal at the 2026 FIDE World Senior Team Chess Championship, which took place last month in Durrës, Albania.

This achievement marked the culmination of a three-year climb to the top that included a silver medal in Kraków, Poland, in 2024 and a bronze medal in Prague in 2025.

“Our previous results already validated that our team was strong enough to win gold,” said Belakovskaia. “The real question was whether we could execute, remain steady emotionally, and if a bit of luck would go our way.”

During the event, Belakovskaia played on board one — the top board in a team chess competition. This position is critical, as first-board results often set the tone and momentum for the rest of the team.

"As the most experienced player on the team, I felt responsible not only for my own games, but also for helping create the right atmosphere," said Belakovskaia. "Team events require emotional discipline just as much as chess skill."

This also meant she had to manage the team's focus as much as her own. When teammates began tracking the standings early in the event, she redirected them. In long team competitions, everything is decided in the final two rounds. The job until then was to stay calm, stay focused and play their own game.

In the final round, Belakovskaia faced Grandmaster Michael Adams — a multiple-time British champion, formerly ranked No. 4 in the world, and a player rated nearly 500 points above her. But she did not waver in confidence.

“Psychologically, I actually felt very peaceful throughout the tournament. I believed in our team from the very beginning,” she said.

That mindset was tested in the penultimate round. The team had agreed to play conservatively and offer draws, but when Belakovskaia's opponent declined her draw offer, the game became one of the team’s most grueling battles of the tournament. She kept creating practical problems move after move, until her opponent finally cracked, giving Belakovskaia a win that guaranteed the U.S. women at least a share of first place with one round to go.

"Ironically, it became probably the most difficult and most rewarding game of the tournament for me," she said.

But gold was not yet guaranteed. In the final round, the team faced England 1, the second-seeded team with a much higher average rating, and lost 0 to 4, leaving the title uncertain. Then, as the remaining results came in, the outcome became clear that none of the other women’s teams could catch them. The gold was theirs.

The USA Women’s Team — composed of Belakovskaia, Natalya Tsodikova, Beatriz Marinello, Olga Marinello, Olga Sagalchik and Ivona Jezierska — has done it. The prize was 500 Euros and a world title. 

“Our gold-medal result was truly a team effort. Every half-point mattered, and our success came from resilience, preparation, trust and support for one another throughout the tournament,” she said.

Belakovskaia is no stranger to the gold-medal podium.

In 1990, at 21 years old, she won the World Student Team Championship as part of the Soviet Union team — an achievement she recalls as “life-changing.” At the time, she had just started her first job in Odessa, Ukraine, as an investigator of financial fraud, and the $900 prize totaled nearly 10 years of her salary.

Instead of purchasing a Zhiguli, a very popular Soviet car, as she had planned, her father convinced her to use the money to travel to Philadelphia for the World Open in 1991. She never looked back.

"That trip ultimately changed my entire life and started my American journey," said Belakovskaia.

The 2026 championship last month carried a different meaning. Over three decades later, it did not signify a new trajectory as before, but instead a deep-rooted confirmation of her lifelong efforts in the sport.

"For me, this title represented validation," she said. "It was proof that the journey, the experience, the skills and the decades invested into chess still matter and still have value."

That value, she said, is something she continues to pass on to the next generation through chess, mentorship and education.

Two days after returning to Arizona, Belakovskaia presented her students with their final exam, hosted an end-of-semester party for students in her home, flew to Miami for a crypto conference, then to Washington, D.C., for an AI expo, celebrated Mother’s Day with her family, then headed to Texas for the K–8 National Championship to support her youngest chess program students, who eventually won a third-place trophy in the unrated section, which was almost as tall as they were.

It was, she acknowledges, a lot. But this juggling across priorities and continents reflects an important mindset she actively tries to model for her students.

"Today you have to be fast, flexible, globally minded and willing to 'play by the position,'” she said.

As chair of Thunderbird’s AI and Emerging Technologies Committee, Belakovskaia views artificial intelligence as critical in reshaping business education, much like a bold sacrifice reshapes a chess position: Suddenly, the familiar rules no longer apply in the same way, and every player has to rethink strategy.

“We must embrace AI rather than resist it. The workforce of the future will require AI literacy,” said Belakovskaia.

“Students need to understand how to ask the right questions, how to generate solutions using one or multiple AI systems, how to evaluate the quality and validity of those solutions, and finally how to implement them effectively and responsibly.”

In her Navigating Global FinTech Innovation course, for example, student teams build a FinTech startup from scratch, thinking globally and using real emerging technologies to create something innovative under pressure.

The skills that win chess tournaments, she said, are the same ones that will define the next generation of global business leaders: pattern recognition, emotional discipline, adaptability, and the willingness to keep fighting when the position looks difficult.

“These are incredibly exciting times,” she said. “The opportunities are enormous for people who remain curious, open-minded, adaptable and willing to continuously learn."