Gomes win Gold as Indian eves sweep medals in Asian Jr Chess

New Delhi, Nov 14 (UNI) Indian eves stamped their class in the Asian Junior Girls championship with the trio of Mary Ann Gomes, Kiran Monisha Mohanty and P Lakshmi Sahiti winning Gold, Silver and Bronze respectively even as M Shyam Sundar missed the first place by a whisker in the boys' event here today.

Women International Master Gomes drew her ninth and final round game with Lakshmi Sahiti to win the Gold. In the process, the 17-year-old earned her second Women Grandmaster Norm.

Meanwhile in the Boys' event, Shyam Sundar played 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 the first place in the open section on 7 points and thereby became the youngest International Master of the country currently.

The third place went to G Rohit on 6.5 points whose tiebreak proved superior to the remaining three 6.5 pointers -- Aswin Jayaram, Abhijeet Gupta and Deep Sengupta.

International Grand Master Nigel Short, who was here 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 was more than just about the brilliance of Vishy (Viswanathan Anand) and there were a number of up and coming players who were immensely talented to make a mark on the international arena.

UNI SAM DH VV2008