Chess Olympiad: Indian teams continue winning spree

PTI

Mamallapuram, July 31

The Indian teams continued their winning run in the Open section of the 44th Chess Olympiad with all three posting easy victories over their respective opponents here today.

While the second-seeded India ‘A’ rode on wins from GMs P Harikrishna and Arjun Erigaisi for a 3-1 victory against Greece, India ‘B’ swept past Switzerland 4-0 and the third team got the better of Iceland 3-1.

The top-seeded Americans stamped their authority with a 3-1 win over 24th seed Georgia.

In the women’s event, the three Indian teams were victorious for a third straight day. The ‘A’ team rested top player Koneru Humpy but came through 3-1 against England, courtesy wins from R Vaishali and Bhakti Kulkarni.

Dronavalli Harika was fielded for the first time in this Olympiad and this is the ninth consecutive time that she is playing for India, not to mention the two virtual Olympiads where India won a gold and bronze medal in the mixed version.

The ‘B’ team recorded a 3-1 win against Indonesia.

The third host team won 2.5-1.5 against Austria.

In other results, the 28th ranked Mongolia pulled off an upset 3-1 win over USA, while No. 2 seed Ukraine trounced Slovakia 4-0.

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