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**wrap07** · 31st October 2008, 09:51 PM

http://www.hindu.com/2008/10/31/stor...3162871900.htm

India dominates World Youth championships

Vung Tau (Vietnam): India finished the World Youth chess championships at Vietnam with four gold, two silver and two bronze medals. As expected, Baskaran Adhiban, Vidit Gujrathi and Sayantan Das played well to get their World titles.

The only miss was in the girls’ under-12 where Bodda Pratyusha was defeated and settled for bronze.

Silver medals were got by S.P. Sethuraman in the under-16 boys and R. Preethi in the under-18 girls.

The second bronze was won by Debashis Das in the boys’ under-16.

With the four gold medals India won the team championship which gets 30 chess clocks for the country. The second best country was Croatia with two gold medals in the under-18 sections.
Second gold

Adhiban won India’s second gold medal when he drew with Eric Hansen of Canada in the under-16 to stay out of reach from the pursuing pack. Cuttack’s Debashis Das added a bronze to Sethuraman’s silver in this section.

Sayantan Das gave a wonderful performance against Mikhal Antipov of Russia in the under-12.

In a complicated position he carried out a devastating attack swinging his queen from side to side to checkmate his opponent.

Gujrathi won his game against Emmanuel Garcia of Philippines while his joint leader of the previous round, Lortkipanidze of Georgia, could only draw.

This performance also gave him his third and final International Master norm which needs to be approved by FIDE.

He had got his first norm from the Chennai National ‘A’ and the second from the Commonwealth Championship at Nagpur.

Vidit Gujrathi (under-14)

Padmini Rout, who had already won the under-14 girls on Wednesday, drew her final game to finish her tournament quietly. Pratyusha played her heart out to win. With the black pieces she made a dubious sacrifice of a bishop for two pawns.

However, in due course the dynamics changed and she achieved an unbalanced position with good possibilities when she overstepped the time limit and lost on the 35th move.
Silver for Preethi

Rajkumar Preethi from Madurai won the silver medal in the under-18 girls section with an unbelievable victory against Maria Gosciniak of Poland.

B. Adhiban (under-16) who won the titles in the World Youth chess championships.

Her queen and king hunted down white’s king despite a preponderance of rook, knight and many pawns for white.

This also gave Preethi a possible Woman International Master norm as she did not meet enough titled players. This is also the case with Vidit’s norm in the under-14.

All the world champions received a laptop as an additional prize. The top ten players in each category were given prizes. Apart from the medals and prizes for the top ten players in each category, the organisers also gave team prizes for the best three performers of each country in each category.

India has dominated this championship missing out in the team prizes in only five of the 12 categories.

All world champions and Indians in the top ten in each category:

Boys: Under-8: 1. Tran Minh Thang (Vie); 8. M. Sabhareesh; 10. Abhimanyu Puranik.

Under-10: 1. Jan-Krzystof Duda (Pol); 4. Diptayan Ghosh.

Under-12: 1. Sayantan Das; 5. Shardul Gagare; 6. Shiven Khosla; 10. Girish Koushik.

Under-14: 1 Vidit Gujrathi; 7. N. Srinath.

Under-16: 1. B. Adhiban; 2. S.P. Sethuraman; 3. Debashis Das; 6. K. Priyadarshan.

Under-18: Ivan Seric (Cro).

Girls: Under-8: 1. Zhansaya Adbumalik (Ksa); 10. Riya Savant.

Under-10: 1. Aleksandra Goryachkina (Rus); 5. Sunyasaktha Satpathy; 10. M. Mahalakshmi.

Under-12: 1. Zhai Mo (Chn); 3. Pratyusha Bodda; 10. P.V. Nandhidhaa.

Under-14: 1. Padmini Rout; 8. Shalmali Gagare.

Under-16: 1. Nazi Paikidze (Geo). Under-18: Valentina Golubenko (CRO); 2. R. Preethi.

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**ajithfederer** · 21st November 2008, 11:37 PM

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv...OEN20080073580

Indian sportspersons successes fuelled Anand's ambition

Press Trust of India
Friday, November 21, 2008 ()
World Champion
Viswanathan Anand on Friday said a series of successes by various Indian sportspersons had added to his motivation level to defend his title against Vladimir Kramnik of Russia.

"I am really happy to see so many sporting success for India this year. Apart from cricket, I could follow Abhinav Bindra and Saina Nehwal's triumphs. In fact, that gave me a little bit of extra motivation to win back my title," Anand said on his return to Chennai for the first time after reclaiming the crown.

The 38-year-old chess ace said he was proud to thump former World Champion Kramnik in a 12-game match - a format which is supposed to be the Russian's forte.

"It is unheard of to take a three-point lead, especially against a player like Kramnik," he said and admitted that his "opening preparations played a big part" in his success. "Games 3 and 5 were not only important wins but they were also beautiful wins," added Anand, referring to his three-point lead at Bonn, Germany last month.

Anand said he was also proud of his consistency and that he managed to peak in the right years because of which he reached the pinnacle of the game.

"I am pretty proud of my consistency. I am in top-three (rankings) from 1996 till today... I also managed to peak in the right years which is very important," he said.

But Anand refused that he had reached the cul de sac as far as chess was concerned.

"I am still learning a lot about chess. I am enthusiastic about chess and motivated to play," he told NDTV. Asked about the legacy he has created in Indian chess, Anand said, "I am both happy and proud that I made the contribution to make India a potential power in chess".