Armeina lifts gold among men, Ukraine eves rule roost; India lags

Turin, June 4 (UNI) Indian campaign at the 37th chess Olympiad ended with disappointment and while eves lost to Russia to finish 12th, their fancied male counterparts barely managed a win against Italy B but it could not prevent them from finishing poor 30th on the last day today.

Armenian men drew with Hungary on the final day but that proved suffice to lift the Gold while Ukraine walked away with glory in the women's event that concluded at the Oval-Lingotto here.

Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand was rested today and instead Krishnan Sasikiran led the Indian Team comprising of P Harikrishna, Surya Sekhar Ganguly and Sandipan Chanda.

With black pieces, Sasikiran played a long and tiring game against Niccolo Ronchetti and the Italian did not resign before 56 moves.

P Harikrishna, who had been India's best performer in the tournament, played a superb game in the last round against FIDE Master Daniele Vocaturo and won the game in just 29 moves with white.

However, Ganguly again lost his game against a lowly rated Sabino Brunello while Sandipan Chanda had a marathon game with Denis Rombaldoni but the Italian player kept his cool and finally was able to survive by drawing the game after 102 moves.

Italy B lost to India 1.5-2.5 and India finished on 30th place with 28.5 points from a maximum possible 52 points.

Later Harikrishna told UNI, ''The opposition we played was not so great and definitely the team did not play atleast according to the standard of the players. We infact played very badly this time.

Even the standard of our games were not so good.'' ''I will not blame the players for this poor performance and hold my self responsible for this failure. However I feel that we should bring our best Six players and that the coach should be allowed to take atleaset one player of his own choice,'' India coach Grandmaster Elizbar Ubilava said.

On the women's front, Koneru Humpy and and Harika Dronavalli drew their games against a strong Russian Team of Alexandra Kosteniuk and Tatiana Kosintseva while her sister Nadezhda Kosintseva blanked Swati Ghate on the third board to make it 2-1.

The individual gold in the women's Section went to Luxembourg's WIM Fiona Antoni who secured a record winning points from the Olympiad.

Men's standing: Armenia 36 (1st), China 34 (2nd), US 33 (3rd), India (30th) Women: Ukraine 29.5 (1st), Russia 28 (2nd), China 27.5 (3rd), India 23 (12th).

UNI XC DH PM2105