Nirmala Sitharaman congratulates Team India on entering FIDE Chess Olympiad quarter-finals

Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman congratulated Indian chess players on advancing the nation directly into the quarter-finals of the ongoing online Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE) Chess Olympiad on Sunday, August 23. India became the first team to enter the quarter-finals after defeating China 4-2 in the final round of the top division. 

At the online FIDE Chess Olympiad, India finished with 17 points, ahead of China with 16 points. Meanwhile, Germany and Iran were third and fourth on the list with 11 and 9 points respectively.

India had started the day by defeating Georgia 4-2 in the seventh round of the top division and China had advanced after claiming victory over Vietnam in the same round. India dominated the match with Germany to enter a showdown with China in Round 9.

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India’s performance on Sunday

Against Georgia, it was five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand who drew with  Levan Pantsulaia and P Harikrishna beat Luka Paichadze to give India the lead. Meanwhile, India’s Koneru Humpy had a stalemate with Meri Arabidze and D Harika lost to Nino Batsiashvili. But, R Praggnanandhaa and Divya Deshmukh ended up claiming victory over Nikolozi Kacharava and Diana Lomaia contributing to India’s advancement from Round 7.

In the next round against Germany, India won by 4.5-1.5. Vidit, Bhakti Kulkarni and Vantika Agarwal won their respective matches and Harikrishna, Harika and Nihal Sarin played draws. Entering the final round of the top division with China, India claimed sweeping victory with 4-2.

Vidit played draw with World’s number 3 player Ding Liren. The present world champion Ju Wenjun had a stalemate against Harika and Humpy-Hou Yifan's ended in a draw as well. Even Harikrishna’s match against Yangyi Yu fetched half points of a draw. Praggnanandhaa and Divya ramped up their game and fetched India’s place in quarter-finals with wins against Yan Liu and Jiner Zhu, respectively in the end.

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