Chess Olympiad 2024: India shines on Day 1; Men beat Morocco 4-0; Women defeat Jamaica

The Indian men’s team started Chess Olympiad 2024 with a clean sweep against Morocco in the opening round, at the SYMA Sports and Conference Centre in Budapest, Hungary on Wednesday.

File photo: Grandmaster R. Praggnanandhaa was one of the members of the team and he beat Mohamed Tissir of Morocco. | Photo Credit: PTI

The Indian men’s team started Chess Olympiad 2024 with a clean sweep against Morocco in the first round of open section, at the SYMA Sports and Conference Centre in Budapest, Hungary on Wednesday.

R. Praggnanandhaa and Vidit Gujrathi beat Mohamed Tisir and Mehdi Pierre Ouakhir, respectively while Arjun Erigaisi and P. Harikrishna had the last laugh against Jacques Elbilia and Anas Moayad on their respective boards.

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As many as 99 teams in the open section started off with wins giving them all two points each. A total of 182 teams were paired while 15 teams were still grappling to reach Budapest.

In the women’s section, India defeated Jamaica 3.5-0.5. R. Vaishali defeated Adani Clarke, while Tania Sachdev triumphed over Gabriella Watson and Divya Deshmukh beat Rachel Miller.

However, Vantika Agrawal’s draw cost India half a point, as she was held by Raehanna Brown on the third board.

The women’s event features 178 teams as of now with 19 still awaited to join the extravaganza from round two onward.

(With inputs from PTI)