PM Narendra Modi
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday congratulated the Indian chess team for winning the 2020 FIDE Online Chess Olympiad. India were announced joint winners of the gold medal alongside Russia after a technical fault.
Praising the Indian squad, represented by Captain Vidit Gujrathi, former world champion Viswanathan Anand, Koneru Humpy, D Harika, young prodigy R Praggnanandhaa, Pentala Harikrishna, Nihal Sarin and Divya Deshmukh, Prime Minister Modi opined that the win will inspire young chess players to take up the sport. He also congratulated the Russian team.
"Congratulations to our chess players for winning the FIDE Online #ChessOlympiad. Their hard work and dedication are admirable. Their success will surely motivate other chess players. I would like to congratulate the Russian team as well," tweeted Prime Minister Modi.
"We just told FIDE that three of our players - K. Humpy, Nihal Sarin and Divya Deshmukh were logged out due to server crash during the second match of the final," non-playing Captain Srinath Narayanan told IANS.
"We had asked for a fair solution - a replay of three games," he added.
Soon after India made the appeal, FIDE had tweeted: ""In the second round of #ChessOlympiad final match India vs Russia, two Indian players Nihal Sarin and Divya Deshmukh lost connection to their games and forfeited on time. India filed an official appeal, the issue is now being investigated."
