The sexy Russian model, 23, crowned the new Queen of Chess: 'Beauty and brains CAN go together'



A sexy Russian Grandmaster and model has been crowned Queen of Chess after winning the world chess championship.

Combining beauty and brains, glamorous 23-year-old Alexandra Kosteniuk overcame her baby's premature birth early last year, to win the diamond-studded crown at the Championships held in Russia.

The sultry chess prodigy, whose motto is "beauty and intelligence can go together" has worked as a swimsuit and catwalk model to raise the profile of the sport.



Beauty and brains: Alexandra Kosteniuk has been crowned the new Grandmaster of chess

She sells semi-naked pictures of herself, has made a 36-minute video showing her "doing her exercises on Miami beach", and has appeared in a film in Russia.

She won the Women's World Chess Championship 2008 yesterday, beating the Chinese prodigy Hou Yifan in the final.

The triumph is the culmination of years of work by Kosteniuk to give the game a sexy new image which has seen her wow the sport's old guard and attract an army of young fans.

Almost single-handedly she has done much to dispel the image of chess as a game for bookish, tweed jacket-wearing types, or ice cold intellectual geniuses stooped at their boards.

A Grandmaster at 14, she trained by playing games blindfold at the age of five.

Alexandra says she is helping transform chess's image

Her father, Konstantin, left his army job when she was young and decided to devote his time to training her.



She said: "I can remember when my father introduced me to exercises.



"He wrote on little cards the squares of the chessboard, like E4, A1 - or even false ones like E9 to test me. Then he would show me cards, one quickly after the other, and I'd have to say whether the square was white or black on the board."



Konstantin even taught his daughter to win a chess game blindfolded in three moves, in a bid to "exercise her brain."



Kosteniuk became a Grandmaster at 14, the youngest woman in the world to attain the title, and at 18 took a set off legendary chess champion Anatoly Karpov.

She has dismissed claims her modelling exploits distract people from the intellectual importance of chess.

She says: "Modelling is not a job. It is just a hobby, like reading books.

" I want people to see there is a fun side to chess. It can be made as exciting as soccer or tennis. Things are changing. I am clever, so I can play chess; and I am not so ugly, so I can model."



Kosteniuk is married to Swiss-born Diego Garces, who is 25 years her elder. In April last year she gave birth to her daughter Francesca Maria. After Francesca was born 2 1/2 months premature she had to stay in hospital for eight weeks, but has since made a full recovery.





