Vantika Agarwal, India’s chess Olympiads gold medalist, met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and recalled being felicitated by him as a nine-year-old.
India’s Chess Olympiads gold medalist met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday. For girl grandmaster Vantika Agrawal this event was particular because it was PM Modi who as CM of Gujarat who had motivated her by felicitating her when she had received the Asian under-nine Championship Gold as a younger woman.
Vantika opened up on being felicitated for her two medals she received at Asian under-nine championships by the Prime Minister and the way it motivated her to win extra accolades for India and turn out to be extra passionate concerning the sport. She additionally talked concerning the shock she felt on realising that the Prime Minister knew about her birthday coming on Saturday.
“When you encouraged me. I felt really motivated and happy. I decided to give my everything to chess and win more medals for India. I had won two Asian Championships golds and PM Modi had felicitated me (when he was the CM). He also knew that my birthday is on September 28th. I just could not believe it that he remembered it,” mentioned Vantika.
Vantika gifted PM an image of her being felicitated by him as a child for her Asian Championships gold in Gujarat.
Speaking in the course of the interplay, PM Modi spoke a few large chess occasion he hosted throughout his days as a Gujarat Chief Minister and the way his resolution of getting 20,000 gamers play was met with marvel.
“I held a chess event in Gujarat when I was the Chief Minister. I had 20,000 players playing chess. Everyone, including the officials, wondered and questioned why I was spending so much money for it, but I wanted to do it. I had prepared a huge pandal for it,” mentioned PM Modi.
Harika Dronavalli, one of many gamers within the gold medal profitable ladies’s group, mentioned that the gamers had been so completely satisfied on their landmark gold medal that they celebrated in a extremely grand method. This additionally made their opponents actually completely satisfied for them.
“Every opponent present there came and congratulated us,” she added.
Teen chess prodigy and grandmaster Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, who was the a part of the lads’s group, mentioned that the bogus intelligence helps chess evolve and gamers are studying from it.
“With AI, the chess is evolving. New technology is coming. The computers have become stronger. It is showing new ideas in chess. We are still learning from it,” mentioned Praggnanandhaa.
Even Vidit Gujarathi mentioned that AI instruments are used throughout preparations. Vidit additionally opened up on how the viewers was rooting for India and folks had come to observe the sport from faraway locations.”Chess’ popularity is increasing. There was pressure, but seeing this much support and people rooting for us, it was a great feeling,” he added.
Tania Sachdev, the a part of the ladies’s gold profitable group, mentioned that in the course of the Olympiad held in Chennai, the ladies’s group missed out on gold as they misplaced to the USA of their final recreation, and that loss motivated them rather a lot throughout their rematch this time round.
“This match we had again was a close one, a draw. We were going to comeback with a gold. There was no second way,” she added.
D Gukesh, the winner of the FIDE Candidates event and contender for the world championship, mentioned that win was a group effort and each participant within the males’s group was in nice type and motivation.”In 2022, I lost a game which could have helped us win the gold. It was heartbreaking to us all. From the start, we wanted to win this gold for the team,” added Gukesh.
Abhijit Kunte, the previous chess participant and grandmaster who accompanied the ladies’s group as a coach, mentioned that when he performed his first Olympiad in 1998, gamers and folks from India used to run to international stars like Garry Kasparov for his or her autographs.
“But now, people come for autographs of our players. This is all because of PM Modi’s vision of making the country number one,” he added.
The Indian ladies’s group received gold after beating Azerbaijan 3.5-0.5. Harika, Divya, and Vantika received their respective matches within the remaining spherical, whereas Vaishali drew her recreation in opposition to Ulviyya Fataliyeva.In the lads’s competitors, the USA secured second place, with Uzbekistan profitable bronze. In the ladies’s competitors, Kazakhstan claimed the silver medal, and the USA took bronze.
In the ultimate spherical of the event, the Indian males’s group comprising D Gukesh, R Praggnanandhaa, Arjun Erigaisi, Vidit Gujrathi, and Pentala Harikrishna defeated Slovenia to clinch the gold medal. Victories from Gukesh and Arjun gave India a 2-0 lead, securing the gold. Praggnanandhaa later received his recreation, and Vidit drew his, leading to a 3.5-0.5 win for India.
Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by DNA employees and is revealed from ANI.
