The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Four AP girls among five debarred

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Four AP girls among five debarred

Special Correspondent

Includes last year’s National under-7 champion
Tests on eight boys proves to be inconclusive

NEW DELHI: The age-old malady of older children being made to play in the younger age-groups competitions in chess surfaced again when five girls, including last year’s National under-7 champion, were found ineligible to play in the on-going Parsvnath National under-9 chess championship here on Saturday.

Andhra Pradesh, under the scanner of the All India Chess Federation for some time now, has done its reputation no good.

Out of the six girls medically examined, four AP girls — National under-7 champion N. Madhumita, I.L.V.K. Sagarika, H. Tejaswini and S. Akhila — along with Orissa’s Sovna Sonali Jena were found “above 10 years of age” by the doctors of Fortis Hospital here.

According to the AICF joint secretary and organising secretary of the National under-9 championship, Bharat Singh Chauhan, eight boys were also medically examined.

“The boys were found to be between the age of eight and 10. The doctors could not conclusively prove whether these children were overage,” he said.

“We have debarred these five girls from the tournament. One other girl, Priyavada Karmcheti, also from AP, was earlier removed from competition following complaints of her being ineligible.

“We conducted enquiries and found out that she was a student of Class VI. Priyavada’s mother also admitted to this fact,” said Mr. Chauhan.

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