A fascinating combination of long-serving mould-breakers as well as young natural born players, containing Koneru Humpy, Harika Dronavalli, Tania Sachdev, R Vaishali as well as Bhakti Kulkarni. They created the history of Indian chess. As the very first Indian ladies’s group to win a medal in an Olympic competitors.
India was within touching distance of the gold medal for a lot of the tournamen. In the only lead going into the final round, the result was a 1-3 loss to the U.S. Tania and Bhakti botched their next game, while Humpy and Vaishali hung on for a draw. tania was unbeaten in 10 video games before the final round, scoring eight points. She struggled to come to terms with her mystifying loss to American Carissa Yip on the final day of play.
A historical initial medal and a tribute to a missed out on chance
India did not lose versus the team that completed in advance of them in the final standings. That is one of the reasons a gold medal seemed likely. However, for a while, even the bronze medal was in uncertainty. After the last round, Ukraine as well as Georgia won the gold and silver medals in the females’s group, respectively. India’s medal fate hung in the balance. It took some frenzied tie-breaker calculations before it was decided that India would win the bronze medal.
The two masters on the Indian team, Humpy and Harika, were theoretically the highest possible ranked gamers on the team. The majority of these females have actually been silently crushing stereotypes for many years. Humpy climaxed of Hungarian record Judit Polgar by becoming grandmaster at the age of 15. She was the first Indian women chess gamer to gain the title of grandmaster. She went through a difficult pregnancy, yet recuperated quickly after delivering and came to be World Rapid Champion in 2019.
Harika pulled out all the quits to accompany her group. Harika balanced her innovative pregnancy phase with the roughness of a lengthy classic competition as well as played seven consecutive attracts. She missed out on the last two matches, yet showed up with the remainder of the group.
Tania is an international grandmaster. Contrary to the stereotype of the chess player as unsociable and also peaceful. With this pandemic, she opened chess to thousands of new followers.
Bhakti, 30, played the first three rounds and was rested for the following 6. After Harika withdrew, she was placed in the last two rounds. She was among the gamers that surged Kazakhstan 3.5-0.5 in the penultimate round, however did not rather stand up in the last round.
Amongst those starters was debutant Vaishali, the youngest participant of the team. This Olympiad revealed that she is becoming a valuable staff member. She won with Humpy in a suit against the third seed and also previous champion Georgia. giving India its only lead at the halfway point after six rounds of play.
Prior to each round, photographers from the neighborhood media flocked to catch her every action. She drew through as well as eventually won the individual bronze medal.
Final thought
The Indian women’s team’s previous best result was a fourth place finish at the 2012 Chess Olympiad in Istanbul. It was a years afterwards that their first bronze medal came. But in a sport where there is a substantial sex space in regards to participation as well as toughness of play, this bronze medal could well be the rallying cry for a new generation of girls.