Indians Wins 10 Gold, 4 Silver, 5 Bronze

These numbers reflect India’s dominance in Asian Chess. The Asian Youth Chess Championship concluded at Sari in Iran on June 26, 2013.

Out of the maximum possible 14 gold, India took a lion’s share of 10 gold and leaving a small portion to the rest of the Asian nations.

Five girls and five boys won titles as India continued to dominate continental age group chess. In the Open section, Girish Koushik of Mysore retained his under-16 title while Aravindh Chithambaram of Madurai won the under-14 section. K.S. Raghunandan of Bangalore who is trained by Indian and overseas Grand Masters won the under-12 title.

L.N. Ram Aravind of Trichy who is  trained by S Manikandaswamy won the Under-10 title. R Praggnanandhaa of Chennai of Bloom Chess Academy won the under-8 section.

In girls, Bodda Pratyusha (Vizag) won in under-18 section while Riya Sawant of Goa won the under-14 girls section. R Vaishali of Bloom Chess Academy, Chennai won the Girls under-10 section while Divya  Deshmukh of Nagpur won the under-8 section. In the tie-break, B Savithashree prevailed and won the under-6 title in girls.

Overall, for a single nation to win 19/42 medals is extraordinary. Indians are doing it over and over again. At home, near home or away, the results are the same.

Four of the silver medal winners include: C Lakshmi (Girls U-10), Aronyak Ghosh (Under-10), N Priyanka (Girls U-12), Srija Seshadri (Girls U-16). The bronze medal winning Indians were Rakshitta Ravi (Girls U-8), Krystal Fernandes (Girls U-10), Kushagra Mohan (Under-10), S Ananya (Girls U-14), Karthikeyan Murali (Under-14).

The highlight of the Indian showing was the podium sweep in the under-10 boys.

The brother-sister duo of Praggnanandhaa and Vaishali of Chennai continued to impress taking two gold medals to their parents.