Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand to mentor Indian chess team for 2022 Asian Games

With eight months left for the Asian Games 2022 to start at Hangzhou, China on September 10, the All India Chess Federation (AICF) is hopeful of a rich medal haul from their men’s and women’s team when the chess discipline returns to the Asian Games fold after 12 years.

“Eyeing the four gold medals at stake in the games, legendary Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand took a different role and will mentor the team and first session with him and players will kick start next Thursday,” stated an official release.

Aiming to make a big difference after 2010 Guangzhou Games, where India only got two bronze medals, AICF started the preparations well in advance by selecting ten probables each for the men’s and women’s team.

The team has been selected on the basis of their International Rating and Vidit Gujarathi, P Harikrishna, Nihal Sarin, S L Narayanan, K Sasikiran, B Adhiban, Karthikeyan Murali, Arjun Erigaisi, Abhijeet Gupta and Surya Shekhar Ganguly made the cut in the men’s team while the women’s team will be selected from K Humpy, D Harika, Vaishali R, Tania Sachdev, Bhakti Kulkarni, Vantika Agrawal, Mary Ann Gomes, Soumya Swaminathan and Eesha Karavade.

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The selection committee consisting of Abhijit Kunte, Dibeyandu Barua and Dinesh Sharma will decide the final list of five players in April.

The chess event of the games will start on September 11 and will be played in two formats. The Individual Event of Men and Women will be played in Rapid time control from September 11-14 while four Board five-member Team Event will be played under Standard time control from September 16-24.

• India