China lift title; India miss bronze

Kozhikode:

Second seed China emerged champions with a final tally of 27 points while Hungary had to be satisfied with silver and India 'A' missed the bronze to Uzbekistan in a tie-break in the ninth and final round of the World Youth Chess Olympiad. Overnight sole leader, China beat India 'C' 2.5-1.5 while top seed Hungary lost to India 'A' with the similar score to finish with 24 points. Inspite of its scintillating performance in the final round, India 'A', who aggregated 22 points, was quite unlucky to lose the third spot to Uzbekistan as the latter enjoyed better match points to claim the bronze via tie-breaker. India 'B' and Iran ended in joint fifth position collecting 21 points each with identical match points. All the top three Indian teams played really well against better rivals but the hosts struck form a bit too late to turn their performance into a medal-winning one. While Sriram Sarja (India 'C') outclassed China's Zhou Jianchao, it was T Abhay of India 'A' who decided the game in his team's favour by defeating Berczes David of Hungary. Prati R Shriwas and Praveen Prasad won their respective games against Toufighi Homayoon and Khademi Mohammad Miran for India 'B'. Gold medals were also given to individual top-scorers in all the four boards where too India 'A' captain, S Arun Prasad could finish only second on the top board enabling China's Wan Hao to walk away with the gold. (PTI)