India wins three rapid chess golds at Asian Indoor Games

Posted : Sun, 28 Oct 2007 03:48:01 GMT
Author : IANS

Published by the Earthtimes.org

Macau, Oct 28 - Krishnan Sasikiran and Dronavalli Harika added the individual gold medals in rapid chess to make it a clean sweep for the Indian chess team at the second Asian Indoor Games here.

The Indians won the team gold and then both the individual gold medals in rapid chess, giving India three gold medals and a third place in the medal standings.

Black was the winning colour for Sasikiran and Harika as they won their finals with a victory with black pieces. Sasi beat Qatar's Mohammed Ahmed Al Modiakhi and Harika defeated Nguyen Thi Thanh An as India dominated the rapid chess competition.

This makes up for the Asian Games disappointment,' said Sasi. 'But there is more to come, so I am looking forward to that.'

While India won all three gold medals available in rapid chess, Vietnam had one silver and two bronze, Iran had one silver and one bronze, Qatar had one silver, and China, one of the pre-Games favourites, managed just one bronze in individual through their top seed Bu Xianghi.

There are six more sets of medals to be fought for in chess, with three sets available in Classical and three more in blitz. Indians are expected to make their presence felt strongly in those too.

Sasikiran, who was very upset at not being able to win the individual gold medal in the Asian Games in Doha last December, made up with a fine performance here.

Winning five games in six rounds, Sasi made the semi-finals comfortably and then went the full distance before beating Vietnam's Ngyen Ngoc Truong Son in the semi-finals. Sasi won the first game with black, but then instead of going for a draw with white, he lost the game and went into the tie-breaker. He won that to make it to the final.

In the other semi-final, Qatar's Mohammed Ahmed Al Modiakhi stunned China's top seeded Bu Xianghi in the tie-breakerwAfter after they drew both their regulation games.

In the final, Sasi drew the first game with black and then defeated Al Modiakhi with white to complete a gold medal win.

In the women's section Harika beat Catherine Perena, who had stunned Koneru Humpy in the team competition, in the first game. Without trying any fancy stuff, Harika sealed her place in the final with a draw in second game.

From the other semi-final, Paridar Shadi of Iran beat Vietnam's Nguyen Thi Thanh An in the tie-breaker, they split the regulation games with one win each.