India clinch 15 medals in Asian Youth Chess meet

Suwon, Aug 10: India finished with a haul of 15 medals including five gold to emerge as the most successful team at the Asian Youth Chess Championships which ended here on Monday. Besides the yellow metal, the Indians also pocketed five silver and five bronze pieces. Second placed Iran could bag only six medals. In the girls' Under-16 category, Aakanksha Hagawane emerged as the champion while Chandreyee Hazra bagged the silver. Harshita Guddanti got the bronze. Aakanksha scored seven, while Chandreye collected 6.5 points out of a possible nine. There were 22 players from 16 countries in this age category. Reigning World Under-8 girls' champion Divya Deshmukh and R. Vaishali domited the U-10 and U-14 categories, respectively. In the open section, talented seven-year-old Bharat Subramanium bagged gold in the U-8 category. However, the biggest cheer to the Indian camp was brought by Krish Teja, who shrugged off a challenge from his Iranian counterpart to emerge triumphant in the U-18 category. IANS