GMAntoaneta Stefanova

Antoaneta Stefanova grew up in Sofia and learned chess from her father, a designer, at four. She won the world girls' under-ten title in 1989. At thirteen she made her first Olympiad appearance for Bulgaria. That same year, 1992, she became European girls' under-fourteen champion. She won Bulgaria's women's championship in 1995. A strong result in Hawaii in 1997 brought her first grandmaster norm. She later played for Bulgaria in the open section of the 2000 Olympiad.

Stefanova won the European Women's Championship in 2002. She received the grandmaster title that July. In 2004 she became women's world champion by winning the knockout championship in Elista. Her tournament successes later included the 2008 North Urals Cup. She won the Women's World Rapid Championship in 2012. Later that year she again reached the classical world-championship final, losing to Anna Ushenina in tiebreaks. In 2017 she won both women's rapid and blitz gold at the IMSA Elite Mind Games. Her long team career included captaining Bulgaria to the 2023 European women's title.