The Hindu : Sport / Chess : India retains World Youth Olympiad title

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India retains World Youth Olympiad title

NEW DELHI: With some timely help from Azerbaijan, a resurgent India came up with a strong finish to pip Russia at the post and retained the World Youth (under-16) Chess Olympiad title at Mersin, Turkey, on Sunday.

India, which crushed Russia 3.5-0.5 in the second round but almost lost its way in the second half of the 10-round competition, caught up with the top seed at 28.5 points and took the honours due to superior tie-break score.

At the start of the final round, India trailed Russia by a point. India expectedly scored a comprehensive 3.5-0.5 victory over England but waited anxiously for the outcome of the Russia-Azerbaijan tie on the top board.

Azerbaijan’s Vasif Durarbeyli tamed Russia’s Oleg Yaksin in 60 moves on the second board to do India a big favour. After India’s last-round victory, much depended on the top-board battle between Azerbaijan’s spearhead Eltaj Safarli and Russia’s Aleksandr Shimanov since Russians had already won on the two lower boards.

As things turned out, Safarli denied Shimanov a victory and this drawn game left India and Russia tied for the title. When the sum of the game-scores of the two teams’ opponents were considered to break the tie, India tallied 235 to Russia’s 234. Philippines took the bronze comfortably at 27 points.

Coincidence

It is indeed a coincidence that twice in the space of nine days in Turkey, Indians took the gold by beating the opposition from England in the final round. On August 15, at Istanbul, Abhijeet Gupta defeated England’s David Howell to win the World junior title.

Speaking to The Hindu from Mersin, team coach Grandmaster R.B. Ramesh said it was a roller-coaster ride to the title. “We did very well to bounce back strongly on more than one occasion. The victory over Russia, perhaps, came too early in the tournament and the boys relaxed a bit after that. But they showed great character when it really mattered,” Ramesh said he had to take some tough decisions while finalising the board-order for each round since all five boys were keen to play, in spite of the energy-sapping schedule.

Consistent display

Ramesh gave credit to the boys and said, “S.P. Sethuraman and Shyam Sundar came good consistently and won board prizes on the second and third boards. Adhiban faced a much stronger opposition on the top board but scored a creditable victory against Russia. Prasanna Rao played solidly while reserve-player Priyadarshan scored 3.5 points from four games. Overall, it was a commendable performance.”

Leading results:

10th round: India (28.5) beat England (20.5) 3.5-0.5 (B. Adhiban bt Zhou Yang-Fan; S. P. Sethuraman bt Callum Kilpatrick; Prasanna Rao drew with Felix Jose Ynojosa; K. Priyadarshan bt Elliot Auckland); Russia (28.5) bt Azerbaijan (24.5) 2.5-1.5; Isek Aquamatch-Turkey (29) lost to Philippines (27) 1-3; Georgia (24) lost to Turkey ‘A’ (23); Slovakia (21) drew with Armenia (24) 2-2.

Ninth round: India beat Switzerland ‘A’ 4-0 (S. P. Sethuraman bt Kambez Nuri; Jonathan Rosenthal lost to Shyam Sundar; Prasanna Rao bt Gabriel Gaehwiler; Priyadarshan bt Alexandre Grillon); Turkey ‘A’ lost to Russia 0.5-3.5; Philippines drew with Azerbaijan 2-2; Aremenia lost to Georgia 1.5-2.5; England bt Greece 2.5-0.5.

Final standing (top-five): 1-2. India, Russia, 3. Philippines, 4. Azerbaijan, 5. Armenia.

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