At a chess tournament in Nikolayev, Ukraine, held in memory of the region’s Chess Club director, Nikolay Shelest, a fight broke out between a coach and one of the tournament’s players.
Anastasia Rakhmangulova, Ukraine’s 2015 Chess Champion, was playing a Nikolayev local favourite, Vladimir Sakun.
21-year-old Rakhmangulova made a mistake and was clearly about to lose. Instead of finishing the game, Sakun started killing time and making pointless moves—toying with and, therefore, insulting his opponent.
Rakhmangulova began to get upset. Seeing this, her coach, Michael Gerasimenyuk, decided to display his sentiments by punching Sakun twice in the face.
The fight would have escalated if event judges had not “taken considerable efforts to restrain Gerasimenyuk from trying to hit [Sakun] in the face,” said one of the event judges.
Rakhmangulova later apologized for her coach’s actions. Coach Michael Gerasimenyuk has been expelled from the Chess Club and is awaiting official disqualification.