Ivana finishes off in style

World Under 8 Girls Champion Ivana Furtado
finished off her campaign in grand style by
disposing off Ali Alia of U.A.E. in less than one
hour in the last round of the Asian Youth Chess
Championships which concluded in Al Ain, U.A.E.
today.

With this victory, Ivana notched 8 out of possible
9 points to record her first Gold Medal in the Asian
Youth Championships. She becomes thus the
youngest Indian to have bagged both the World and
the Asian Championships - another feat for the
Limca Book of records! She will look to make it three
in a row when she participates in the Commonwealth
Championships to be held in New Delhi in December
this year.

Unfortunately, India could not get any more medals
as Ivana's compatriot C.H. Meghna who is also the
National Under 7 Champion lost in the last round to
Iran's Kimya Ghaziolsharif and finished 5th with 5.5 points.
P.Preethy, also of India, finished with 5 points on 7th place.

Ivana's coach Raghunandan Gokhale gave more cheer
for the Indian camp when his student Shardul Gagare
finished with a victory over Enkhnar Enkhbataar of Mongolia
to win the Gold in Boys Under 10 section. World Champion
Girish Kaushik had to remain content with the Silver here
after beating Sultan Ibrahim of the U.A.E.

India garnered three more Gold medals when B. Pratyusha
in the Girls Under 10, Priyanka Kumari in the Girls Under 12
and Revanth Reddy in the Boys Under 10 section all finished
top in their respective categories. India's tally of 10 medals
(5 Golds, 3 Silver and 2 Bronze) is in stark contrast to the 21
medals that they won in Teheran which included 8 Gold medals
in all the 8 categories.

Finally, the home crowd had great reason to celebrate when
local boy and double IM Norm holder Saleh Salem won the boys
Under 14 section ahead of India's International Master S.P. Sethuraman
who finished with the Silver. Salem, the only Gold medal winner from the
U.A.E. was rewarded with a Nissan car by the sponsors!