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India finished the World Youth Chess Championships on a high as budding Indian chess players clinched as many as 11 medals at the global event held at Porto Carras in Greece. The eleven medals included five gold, three silver and three bronze.
The gold was brought home by M Mahalakshmi in the Girls Under-18 category, R Vaishali in the Girls U-14 section and Rakshitta Ravi in the Girls U-10 category. Apart from them, Vaishali’s brother R Praggnanandhaa and promising talent Bharath Subramaniyam also grabbed the gold in the Open U-10 and the Open U-8 sections respectively.
2014 World U-10 champion Nihal Sarin, meanwhile, had to settle for silver in the Open U-12 competition. The other Indian silver medalists were Dev Shah in Open U-8 and V Varshini in Girls U-18. Divya Deshmukh (Girls U-10), Saina Salonika (Girls U-12) and Vantika Agrawal (Girls U-14) picked up the bronze.
All the five gold medallists train at the Chess Gurukul in Chennai, helmed by Grandmaster RB Ramesh who is a former Commonwealth and British champion. Three of the gold medal winners had tasted glory before at the global level. While Mahalakshmi had won the Under-14 world title in 2012, Vaishali and Praggnanandhaa had triumphed in the under-10 category in 2012 and Under-8 section in 2013 respectively.
The success of the youngsters received plaudits from the former World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand. The Indian legend took to social media to tweet out his congratulations to the entire brigade. He also applauded the achievements of Mahalakshmi, whom he has known for 10 years, describing her as ‘the poster girl for India's gen next of chess champions.’
50 Indians had participated at this prestigious event across 12 categories and the 11 medals helped to assert their dominance at the World Youth Chess Championships. Team India finished as the best performing team as other chess powerhouses like Russia and the USA managed to get only four medals each.
This is the first time since the 2006 edition in Batumi, Georgia that the Indian chess players won five gold medals at this tournament.
