The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Youth Olympiad from today

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 02, 2004

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Sport - Chess

Youth Olympiad from today

By P. K. Ajith Kumar

KOZHIKODE, JULY 1. The city remains enchanted by the exotic Euro in Portugal. Kozhikode in fact is well-known for its love of the `Beautiful Game'.

The city also is famous for chess. It has hosted more international and National tournaments than any other place in the country. On Friday, it plays host to the tenth Youth Chess Olympiad.

The world under-16 team event is coming to India for the first time. And the host indeed is a contender for title. It had won bronze in the last edition of the meet in Turkey.

``We are confident about our chances,'' said S. Arun Prasad, the captain of the Indian `A' team, which includes G.N. Gopal, K. Nikhilesh Kumar, T. Abhay and Rahul Sangma.

The host is fielding six teams in the competition, while Sri Lanka will be represented by five teams. In all there will be 20 teams (comprising both boys and girls), from 11 countries.

Hungary, China, Malaysia, Iran, Australia, Turkey, South Africa, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are the other countries which have come for the week-long affair to be held at Taj Residency.

Uzbekistan's Timur Gareev is the highest rated player here with 2536 Elo points (grown-up Grandmasters would love to have such a rating).

"Where is Anand,'' Tamas Banusz, who helped Hungary win the gold last year, wanted to know. He said Anand was his favourite player and admitted that India posed the biggest challenge to his team. ``China also is a strong team,'' he added.

There will be nine Swiss rounds and every contest will have four boards each. The tourney was inaugurated by Mayor Thottathil Raveendran at a function attended, among others, by District Collector T.O. Sooraj, FIDE vice-president P.T. Ummer Koya and John Joseph, president, AKCA.

The meet concludes on July 8.

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