Viktorija Čmilytė, also known as Čmilytė-Nielsen, is a Lithuanian chess player and politician. Awarded the title Grandmaster by FIDE in 2010, she was European women's champion in 2011, and is a two-time Lithuanian champion. In 2015, she replaced Remigijus Šimašius in the Lithuanian parliament.
Chess career
Born in Šiauliai, Čmilytė started playing chess at the age of six, having been taught the moves by her father. He remained her coach during the formative years. She won the European Youth Chess Championships in 1993 in the Girls U12 category and the World Youth Chess Championships in 1995 in the same category. In 2000, at the age of sixteen, Čmilytė won both the women's and absolute national championships of Lithuania, held in Vilnius. She won the latter edging out Grandmasters Darius Ruzele, Viktor Gavrikov and Aloyzas Kveinys, and International MastersVaidas Sakalauskas and Vytautas Slapikas on tiebreak. Čmilytė won the absolute championship again in 2005 in her home city, on tiebreak from Šarūnas Šulskis. She finished second to Jovanka Houska in the 2000 European Junior Girls Championship in Asturias. By 2001, she was ranked number one by FIDE amongst girls. In the same year she won the Corus Reserve Group tournament at Wijk aan Zee. Čmilytė took the silver medal at the European Women's Individual Championship in 2003, 2008 and 2010. She won the European Women's Rapid Chess Championship in 2007. She was awarded the Grandmaster title in 2010, having gained the required norms in the 2008 Gibraltar Chess Festival, 2009 European Team Chess Championship and 2010 European Women's Individual Championship. In 2011, Čmilytė finally took the gold medal in the European Women's Individual Championship. Čmilytė competed in the Women's World Chess Championshipfor the first time in 2000, when she reached the third round. In 2004 she was defeated in the quarterfinals by former Women's World ChampionMaia Chiburdanidze. In 2006, Čmilytė reached the semifinals and lost to the eventual runner-up, Alisa Galliamova. In 2008 and 2010 she was eliminated in the second round, while in 2010 and 2015 she went out in round three.
Team competitions
Čmilytė has played for the Lithuanian team in the 2010 Chess Olympiad and on other occasions participated in the Women's Chess Olympiads, where she won two individual gold medals on board one, the first at Istanbul in 2000 and the second at Calvià in 2004. She earned a place in the team for the first time when she was thirteen and was first board at fifteen, contributing a plus score each time. In the Frauenbundesliga in Germany, she is a team member of OSC Baden Baden, but has also played some league chess in Sweden.
By way of hobbies, she enjoys sports, such as volleyball. She speaks Russian, English and Spanish in addition to her native Lithuanian. Čmilytė was married to Alexei Shirov from August 2001 to early 2007. On 28 December 2013 Čmilytė married Peter Heine Nielsen. She has three sons, Dmitrij, Alexander and Marius.
