Indians stamped their class in the Asian Junior girls' chess championship as the trio of Mary Ann Gomes, Kiran Monisha Mohanty and P Lakshmi Sahiti won gold, silver and bronze respectively, even as M Shyam Sundar missed first place by a whisker in the boys' event, in Delhi, on Tuesday.
Women International Master Gomes drew her ninth and final round game with Lakshmi Sahiti to win the gold medal. In the process the 17-year-old earned her second woman Grandmaster's norm.
Meanwhile, in the boys' event, Shyam Sundar played out a tough draw against top seed Grandmaster Nguyen Ngoc Truongson of Vietnam to finish second.
However, this turned out to be a great break for little-known Shyam Sundar, who got his International Master title by virtue of tying for first place in the Open section, on seven points, and thereby became the youngest International Master of the country.
The third place went to G Rohit, 6.5 points, whose tie-break proved superior to the remaining three 6.5 pointers -- Aswin Jayaram, Abhijeet Gupta and Deep Sengupta.
Grandmaster Nigel Short, who was in Delhi to oversee the international tournament, played under FIDE's Swiss rules, played an exhibition match with India's chess prodigy Parimarjan Negi.
Later Short told reporters that chess in India is more than just about the brilliance of Viswanathan Anand, and there are a number of up and coming players who are immensely talented to make a mark on the international arena.
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