On the day of his greatest triumph, Gukesh Dommaraju, the youngest World Chess Champion, thanked his parents Dr Rajnikanth and Dr Padma for the sacrifices they made to help him in his journey as a chess player.

Soon after he climbed up to the chess summit by beating Ding Liren of China in the World Chess Championship final match in China 7.5-6.5 by capitalising on a blunder by his opponent in the 14th and final classical game, Gukesh said his parents have made a lot of sacrifices to nurture his dream.

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“My parents are both sports lovers but could not pursue their dreams. So, they decided that they would do their best to help me chase my dream in whichever field I chose. We do not come from a very well-off family so they had to make a lot of sacrifices to help me in his journey,” said Gukesh during the post-match press conference.

Gukesh’s father Dr Rajnikanth is an ENT surgeon while his mother Dr. Padma is a microbiologist. They had to put their careers on hold to accompany Gukesh as he played in tournaments in India and abroad. Arranging for trainers was another big expense that his parents had to bear as they got him enrolled with Grandmaster Vishnu Prassana and then got foreign coaches for big tournaments.

Gukesh thanked his parents for all the sacrifices and said the first word his father said to him after he came out of the soundproof glass chamber where they were playing the games was “congratulations”. “I just exchanged a few words with my father. My mother is not here but she will be flying in tomorrow. They have made a lot of sacrifices and I would like to thank them,” said Gukesh.

About the day he first nurtured the dream of winning the World Championship title, the 18-year-old said the dream started when he watched five-time World Champion Viswanathan Anand lose to Magnus Carlsen in the 2013 World Championship Final Match in Chennai.

“When I was watching the match in 2013, I was in the stands, I was looking inside the glass box and I thought it would be so cool to be inside one day. And then when Magnus won, I thought, I really want to be the one to bring back the title to India.

“This was the dream that I had like more than 10 years ago (and it) has been the single most important thing in my life so far. So yeah, doing this for myself, for my loved ones and my country, it’s yeah, like there’s probably nothing better than this,” said Gukesh.

He said breaking Garry Kasparov’s record to become the youngest ever World Championship means a lot to him.

“I mean it probably meant a lot to that 8-year-old then. Right now because I stopped paying too much attention to those numbers like I mean these records. But yeah, I mean there is this famous video clip of 2017-2018 when I said I wanted to be this youngest World champion and now that now that this is not just a dream but reality, it feels Very cool,” he said.

He also thanked his seconds (chess trainers) including Pentala Harikrishna of India and also praised Ding Liren for the fighting chess he played.