Nigel Short

Nigel Short, born in Leigh in 1965,
is an English chess grandmaster, former World Championship challenger and FIDE official.
At the age of ten, he defeated Viktor Korchnoi in a simultaneous exhibition;
shortly before his twelfth birthday, he became the youngest player at the time to qualify for the British Championship.
Short finished second behind Garry Kasparov at the 1980 World Junior Championship in Dortmund
and earned the grandmaster title in 1984.
In the 1991–1993 Candidates cycle, he successively defeated Jonathan Speelman, Boris Gelfand, Anatoly Karpov and Jan Timman.
Together with Kasparov, he subsequently broke away from FIDE and founded the Professional Chess Association.
In the 1993 PCA World Championship match in London, Short lost to the reigning World Champion by 7½–12½.
He reached number three in the world rankings in July 1988 and achieved his peak rating of 2712 in April 2004.
Short won the British Championship three times and numerous international tournaments,
including Wijk aan Zee in 1986 and 1987, Reykjavík in 1987
and the four-player tournaments in Amsterdam in 1988, 1991, 1992 and 1993.
He represented England at a total of 17 Chess Olympiads.
Since September 2022, Short has served as FIDE’s Director for Chess Development,
supporting the establishment and development of national chess federations in particular.