AICF Greets Chess Players

Canara Bank, the leading south based bank will sponsor the Indian Olympiad Men and Women Chess Team starting at Turin in Italy this Saturday. The 37th Chess Olympiad will be played from May 20 to June 4. Thanks to this sponsorship the players will benefit monetarily and this is the first time ever a corporate sponsor is identified with the Olympiad bound Indian Chess Team.

The team will be led by Viswanathan Anand (men) and Koneru Humpy (women). Besides Anand, the men team consists of Krishnan Sasikiran, Pentyala Harikrishna, Surya Sekhar Ganguly, Sandipan Chanda, and Diwakar Prasad Singh. Olympiad debutant D.P.Singh replaces Abhijit Kunte from India's 2004 Olympiad team. Indians are bound to improve on their best ever sixth place finish of 2004 since the big three, Anand, Sasikiran and Harikrishna are at their all time high Elo ratings. Interestingly India will be Second Seeded behind Russia.

Besides World No.2 Koneru Humpy, the Indian women's team consists of the new national women's champion Swati Ghate, Dronavalli Harika and Mary Ann Gomes. Mary Ann Gomes is the debutant and together with Swati Ghate they replace, Vijayalakshmi and Nisha Mohota .

The Olympiad bound Team underwent intensive coaching for 2 weeks at Goa with assistance of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. The teams were trained by the two foreign Trainers GM Elizbar Ubilava (Spain) and Georgdez (Georgia). The players were immensely benefited and are in fine shape.

For the first time Indian players will receive financial support, thanks to sponsorships from Canara Bank, based on their ratings: V.Anand (Rs.5 lakhs), K.Sasikiran, P.Harikrishna (Rs.75,000 each), K.Humpy, S.S.Ganguly, S.Chanda (Rs.50,000 each), D.P.Singh, D.Harika, S.Ghate, Mary Ann Gomes (Rs.25,000 each). In the 2004 Chess Olympiad, AICF President N.Srinivasan paid Rs.15,000 to each of the nine team members and Rs.25,000 to V.Anand from his personal funds.

The coach cum manager of the teams are R.M.Dongre and Bharat Singh. The Chief-de-Mission is D.V.Sundar. The two foreign Trainers will join the team at Turin. The All India Chess Federation will be equipping the players with the ceremonial kits like: Blazers, pants, shirts, shoes, track suits and T-shirts. We are sure that this Olympiad will be different as we expect our men and women teams to come back with medals.