India Win Six Titles, 21 Medals

By Arvind Aaron

Three Indian girls and three Indian boys helped our nation to win half the titles on stake in the Asian Youth Chess Championship that concluded in Iran on July 21. Though fifty percent score is a massive performance by our tiny stars, we had done better when he hosted the same event in Delhi a couple of years before.

"Overall our score was six golds, five silver and ten bronze medals," announced a jubilant AICF Secretary D.V. Sundar. Though our young stars had a great
showing in Georgia 2006 for our best World Youth show, our Asian performances are facing greater resistance from Iran and others like Vietnam. China is making a big mistake by not encouraging age group chess and have not played in these events.

Indian show was headed by M. Mahalakshmi of Chennai who won with a round to spare in the Girls Under-10 section. We also took the podium completely and importantly took the fourth place as well. The World U-8 Girls Champion Ivana Furtado finished second for silver.

Another Chennai girl to win the gold medal is P. Uthra who took first place in the Girls Under-18 section. R. Preethi of Madurai finished with a bronze in this group.

Top seed Padmini Rout of Orissa took the gold in the Girls Under-14 section while Priyanka Kumari of Jharkhand took the bronze.

Our best section in boys was the under-14 group where we completed the podium. Prasanna Rao of Dombivli in Maharashtra had the better tie-break score than his state mate Vidit Gujrathi of Nasik to win this section. Ankit Rajpara ensured the Indian sweep by taking the bronze.

Girish Koushik of Mysore won the Under-12 section and is back in winning business. He is a former world Under-10 champion and holds plenty of promise. Shardul Gagare of Shirdi, Maharashtra took the bronze.

Diptayan Ghosh a student of the Alekhine Chess Club, Kolkata won the boys Under-10 title on tie-break after figuring in a three-way tie. Sidhant Mahapatra took the bronze with the same 7.5 points as the winner.

Indians have continued by taking the 21 medals out of possible 36 and this is certainly yet another lion's share.

Final placings:

Boys Under-18: 1 H. Toufighi (Iri) 6/7, 2 S. Tologontegin (Kgz) 4.5, 3 Debashis Das 4.5, 6 P. Saravanakrishnan 4, 13 R.A. Pradeep Kumar 1.5...14 players.

Boys Under-16: 1 Salem A.R. Saleh (UAE) 7.5/9, 2-3 B. Adhiban, Ikrom Ilhomzade (Tjk) 6.5 each, 4-5 M. Shyam Sundar, S.P. Sethuraman 6 each, 7 S. Nitin 5, 15 K. Priyadarshan 4, 18 Viani D'cunha 3.5...22 players.

Boys Under-14: 1-2 Prasanna Rao, Vidit Santosh Gujrathi 7.5/9, 3 Ankit Rajpara 6.5, 7 Fenil Shah 5, 14 Pranav Shetty 4...20 players.

Boys Under-12: Girish Koushik 7.5/9, 2 Nima Javanbakht (Iri) 6, 3 Shardul Gagare 6, 5 Sayatan Das 6, 7 Shiven Khosla 5.5...25 players.

Boys Under-10: 1 Diptayan Ghosh 7.5, 2 Seyed Khalil Mousavi (Iri) 7.5, 3 Sidhant Mahapatra 7.5, 4 C.H. Mohineesh 6...20 players.

Boys Under-8: 1 Arya Omidi (Iri), 2 Ortik Nigmatov (Uzb) 5.5, 3 Y. Grahesh 5, 7 Adarsh Srivastava 3.5...14 players.

Girls Under-18: 1 P. Uthra 5.5/7, 2 Nafisa Muminova (Uzb) 5, 3 R. Preethi 5, 8 K. Manasa 3.5...16 players.

Girls Under-16: 1 Hoang Thi Nhu Y (Vie) 7.5/9, 2 Mitra Hejazipour (Iri) 6.5, 3 Bhakti Kulkarni 6, 4 Pon N. Krithikha 6, 6 Shalmali Gagare 5, 9 A. Niji 5...18 players.

Girls Under-14: 1 Padmini Rout 5.5/7, 2 Sarvinoz Qurbonboyeva (Uzb) 5, 3 Priyanka Kumari 4.5, 4 J. Mohana Priya 4.5, 11 Nlv Anusha 3...16 players.

Girls Under-12: 1 Sarasadat Khademalsharieh (Iri) 8/9, 2 Sonakshi Rathore 7, 3 Bodda Pratyusha 7, 5 P.V. Nandhidhaa 5, 11 M. Navya Vyshnavi 4.5...18 players.

Girls Under-10: 1 M. Mahalakshmi 8/9, 2 Ivana Furtado 6.5, 3 G.K. Monnisha 6, 4 Sweety Patel 6, 7 Shoumi Mukerjee 5.5...22 players.

Girls Under-8: 1 Zhansaya Abdumalik (Kaz) 6.5/7, 2 Tejaswini Sagar 6, 3 Vu Thi Dieu Uyen (Vie) 5, 4 Savant Riya 4...16 players.
 

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