Much was expected from India’s London 2012 Olympic bronze medallist Yogeshwar Dutt on the final day of a relatively underwhelming Olympic campaign for India. However, the 35-year old was knocked out in the qualificaiton rounds by Mongolia’s Ganzorig Mandakhnaran, 3-0. However, there was some joy for the country in a non-Olympic sport today. Kerala S L Narayanan pulled off a monumental comeback to win bronze at the World Junior Chess Championship. The 18-year old registered a score of 9 points narrowly edging out Xu Yi in China, after being three points behind with as many rounds to go.
Speaking exclusively to Sportskeeda, he said, “This is by far the biggest achievement of my career, these are the best junior players from around the world and to know that I can compete against them, there is no better feeling than that. I actually had to play two or three international tournaments later this year so that I could book another World Championship slot. But, thanks to this medal I have already secured a seed. I think what I learned most from this tournament is to never give up.”
Naryanan has a rating of 2515, 185 points from his end goal of 2020. He added, “I’ve stopped thinking about rating, now I just focus on giving my 120 % and learning different techniques from top players. I feel if I can do that, my rating will increase automatically. I want to becoem Supreme Grand Master, and I’m focussing all my energy towards that.”
The Kerala based chess player is scheduled to play three international tournaments later this year to build on this medal. In 2014, a 17-year old Naryanan almost defeated world number 61 and Latvia’s Igo Kovalenko, losing 1-0. He added, “Now that my board exams are over, I’m getting more time to focus on my chess. I think over the past few months, I’ve been training mentally to never give up. Even today, after the 10 round, I was outside the top 10, but I just concentrated on my game and focussed and the result is there to see.”
It’s surprising to see how such a massive achievement has gone under the radar. He said, “I had support from the government last year, but now there isn’t much. No one contacted me about this either.” The gold medal was won by USA’s Jeffrey Xiong, who registered 10.5 points, closely followed by Russia’s Vladislav Artemiev who finished with 10 points overall. This is the first major junior title of the year for an Indian chess player.
