IMAGE: The India’s men team of Arjun Eigaisi, Dommaraju Gukesh and Vidit Gujrathi pose with chess great Viswanathan Anand after winning the Chess Olympiad. Photograph: Kind courtesy FIDE/X
Chess legend Garry Kasparov hailed India’s historical triumph at the Chess Olympiad.
Kasparov praised India’s chess icon Viswanathan Anand following India’s remarkable achievement as the men’s and women’s teams won their maiden titles in a rare clean sweep of gold medals at the 45th Chess Olympiad in Budapest.
India are only the third country to win both the men’s and women’s gold medals.
Dommaraju Gukesh, Arjun Eigaisi, Divya Deshmukh and Vantika Agrawal also went on to win the individual gold medals.
Former World champion Anand had a major role in India’s triumph. Four of India’s players Gukesh, Erigaisi, Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, and his sister Vaishali have trained at the Westbridge Anand Chess Academy, which Anand set up four years ago in Chennai.
Kasparov credited former rival Anand for India’s resurgence as a super power in chess with a lot of young players coming through.
‘A very impressive double gold achievement by India. Vishy’s children are all grown up and chess is coming home!’, former World chess champion Kasparov tweeted.
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Those eyes are a dead give away. Yes, that’s our very own two-time World Chess Champion, Viswanathan Anand.
That is the very child that went on to mentor many a prodigy for India’s numerous talents who can weave magic on the chess board.
The revered Grandmaster has played a key role in shaping some of the brightest youngsters who won both, the men’s and women’s gold at the 45th Olympiad in Budapest, Hungary, on Sunday, September 22.
And acknowledging his contribution to Indian chess was American chess champion Hikaru Nakamura.
Nakamura tweeted a long post on X with a picture of Anand when he was a kid.
‘It is truly unfathomable how this kid would come from a country with no chess culture and not only become World Champion, but inspire generations of Indian kids to push chess forward. The legend, @vishy64theking! Huge congratulations to India for winning the @ChessOlympiad!’, Nakamura tweeted following India’s victory.
Photograph: Kind courtesy Viswanathan Anand/X
On Monday, Anand then posted a picture with Olympiad champion D Gukesh, who he met at the airport, and captioned it: ‘Just running into a random chess player.’
Gukesh, who will play Ding Liren in the World Chess Championship in November, said he was delighted that his team got over the line in a dominant fashion.
