Levon Aronian

Levon Aronian, born 6 October 1982 in Yerevan, is an Armenian chess Grandmaster. He is Armenia's #1 player. 
Aronian won the Chess World Cup 2005. He led the Armenian national team to the gold medals in the 37th Chess Olympiad, Turin 2006, the 38th Olympiad, Dresden 2008, and the World Team Chess Championship in Ningbo, 2011. In the Chess Olympiad 2010 at Khanty-Mansiysk he won the silver medal for his individual performance on board one.
He won the FIDE Grand Prix 2008–2010, qualifying him for the Candidates tournament for the World Chess Championship 2012, where he was knocked out in the first round. 
Aronian has had a string of outstanding tournament results since reaching the top with a joint win at Wijk aan Zee 2008. His latest, and perhaps greatest victory was in January 2012, at the same Tata Steel Chess Tournament in Wijk aan Zee. The field included world #1 Magnus Carlsen, defending champion Hikaru Nakamura, and former world champion Veselin Topalov, among others. The average rating of the field was 2755, making this thirteen-round event a category 21 tournament. After twelve rounds, Aronian was in clear first place with 8.5 points going into the final round, one point ahead of Carlsen and Teimour Radjabov. In the final round, Aronian drew against Radjabov with the white pieces in the King's Indian Defence. With the draw, Aronian finished with 9/13 (+5), a tournament performance rating of 2891. He took clear first place a point ahead of Carlsen, Radjabov and Fabiano Caruana.
Aronian was declared the best sportsman of Armenia in 2005, and was awarded the title of "Honoured Master of Sport of the Republic of Armenia" in 2009.