In the July 1987 FIDE rating list, Gelfand made his first appearance in the top 100 players, ranked number 80. He became European Junior Champion in 1987, shared second at the USSR Young Masters held in Uzhgorod and shared sixth place at a USSR Championship qualifier event in Sverdlovsk in 1987 with 10/17. Gelfand's successes saw him ranked in the world's top 40 players. After sharing first place in the USSR Young Masters tournament of 1988 in Vilnius and the OHRA B Group in Amsterdam, he came second in the World Junior Championship to Joël Lautier on tiebreaks and shared first with Sergey Dolmatov at the Klaipeda USSR Championship qualifier. Gelfand jointly won the European Junior title with Alexey Dreev in December 1988, won the Barcza Memorial held in Debrecen, Hungary, with 7/10 and led the Belarus team to third place in the USSR Juniors Team Championship at Kramatorsk.