The Hindu : Sport / Chess : A proud moment for India

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Apr 03, 2007
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Sport - Chess

A proud moment for India

P.K. Ajith Kumar

KOZHIKODE: His name is there, finally.

No. 1, Anand, Viswanathan, Grandmaster, India — thus begins the revised April rating list, released by the world chess governing body, FIDE, on Monday. The original list, published a couple of days ago, didn't read like that. That list had Viswanathan Anand at No. 2, as most of the lists had for the last one decade.

Error corrected

FIDE had made a mistake — by putting Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria at the top of the list — and it has corrected it. Anand will be the World's No. 1 chess player for the next three months, until the July list comes out; his chances of staying at the top in that list too aren't bad, as he has a lead of 14 points over Topalov.

This is a hugely significant and proud moment for Indian sport. The 37-year-old has reached where no other Indian has in a sport as competitive and widely played as chess.

It has been three decades and a half since chess players began to be rated. Anand is only the sixth player in history — and the first Asian — to be ranked No. 1.

It was a superb performance at the Linares tournament in Spain (considered the Wimbledon of chess) that helped Anand overtake Topalov. He had triumphed in the most convincing of styles, but FIDE bungled, inexplicably, when it chose not to include Linares for the rating calculations of the April list, deviating from the tradition.

Popular winner

Anand might have heaved a sigh of relief on Monday. His joy wouldn't be shared only by India alone but by the rest of the chess-playing world as well. There has never been a more popular World No. 1 in chess than this genial genius from Chennai. He is not only one of the world's most gifted and successful individuals, in any field, but also one of the nicest and humblest human beings you would ever come across. His humility was even seen as a weakness by some people — until 2000, when he proved that nice people could finish first, by winning the World chess championship held in New Delhi and Teheran.

Long before winning the World title, he had done enough for his country; he had single-handedly inspired thousands of kids to take up chess as a career and to dream big.

The result is already there; you needn't look beyond the April list of FIDE to see it. It has Koneru Humpy as the World No. 2 among women and Krishnan Sasikiran as the No. 25 among men.

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