The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : A champion gets back to school

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Aug 02, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

A champion gets back to school

Staff Reporter

M.Ct.M School in Alwarpet celebrated the return of Srinath on Monday

CHENNAI: : M.Ct.M School at Alwarpet celebrated the return of their whizkid on Monday.

Under-12 world champion N. Srinath came back after his winning the World Youth Chess Championship in Helsinki, last month.

The standard-seven student returned to a hero's welcome when his excited classmates and teachers got together to make it a special occasion for the child prodigy.

The school presented him with a cheque of Rs.25,000 at the function, after his friends and teachers asked him all that they wanted to know.

How did he start playing chess?

Srinath was five and a half years old when he visited his cousins in Mumbai. "They used to play chess. But they did not allow me to play," he recalled, when a student posed him the question. "When we returned to Chennai, my father bought a chess set for me."

Soon, he joined a local chess academy and trained under a coach.

Aarthie Ramaswamy, chess champion and his super senior, said Srinath had always been brilliant, even against stronger opponents.

His parents, who were present to watch their son collect the cheque, said that it came as a surprise when they saw Srinath take to chess seriously.

The little champ, who hopes to take Vishwanathan Anand's place someday, is now all focussed for the National B championship beginning in New Delhi on Wednesday.

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