A colourful closing ceremony at the World Youth Olympiad 2017
ChessBase India covered all the nine rounds of World Youth Olympiad 2017 held at Ahmedabad, Gujarat in great detail. We now bring to you the final report from the Closing ceremony that was held at 5 p.m. on the 18th of December 2017. It was a tastefully conducted ceremony. Russia won the gold, India the silver and Iran settled for bronze. Amruta Mokal brings you the pictorial impressions, while Sagar Shah interviews few of the players and which give you some interesting insights.
The prize ceremony was scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. and the organizers did begin exactly at that time. It was a refreshing change from the endless delay that we experience at the closing ceremonies.
It was a unique achievement for Russia that each of their players also won an individual medal. Semen Lomasov was the only player in the tournament hall who had two gold medals around his neck. When we caught up with the players and coach after they won the medals, they all were in high spirits. All the players spoke highly about their coach, while Kobalia credited the victory to Artur Lobanov! (That's the combination of Artur Gaifullin and Sergei Lobanov who did not lose even a single game on boards two and three for Russia).
Indians played decently well for seven wins, one draw and one loss to Russia. All the players of the Indian squad congratulated Russia and agreed that the Russian team thoroughly deserved the gold medal. For India we received two individual gold medals - Nihal Sarin on board three and P. Iniyan on board four.
This is the first time I saw Nihal and Praggnanandhaa together after World Juniors 2014. Both of them were rated around 2000 back in 2014. In three years the duo have garnered 500 Elo points each! Their friendship is one that is developed as a result of their chess talent. For Pragg it's only Nihal who can understand his amazing calculations, while for Nihal it is only Pragg who gets his passion related to chess. You can see the two walking around together, eating food together, playing blitz together and also sharing a chair like they did in the Prize giving ceremony!
One might imagine some rivalry to crop up between two boys who are roughly of the same age and talent, but that is absolutely not the case. Rivalry is a word that doesn't even come up in their dictionary! It's so refreshing, and definitely something for all the youngsters out there to learn from. We hope that their friendship goes on like this for years to come.
Iniyan won the gold medal on the fourth board, while Vaishali won the silver medal in girls. Of course Aryan Chopra would have been happier if he had a better tournament, but I think playing on the top board is never easy. Also because he was playing on the top board, others got relatively easier oppositions. Hence, the argument that Aryan should have been rested is not the correct one in my opinion.
Check out the best performers on the basis on percentage on different boards:
Board prizes for different boards
Final Ranking after 9 Rounds
| Rk. | SNo | Team | Games | + | = | - | TB1 | TB2 | TB3 | TB4 | TB5 | |
| 1 | 3 | Russia | 9 | 8 | 0 | 1 | 16 | 25,5 | 0 | 544,3 | 192,0 | |
| 2 | 1 | India Green | 9 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 15 | 25,0 | 0 | 517,0 | 192,5 | |
| 3 | 2 | Iran | 9 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 14 | 25,5 | 0 | 540,3 | 196,0 | |
| 4 | 4 | Armenia | 9 | 6 | 0 | 3 | 12 | 24,5 | 0 | 476,8 | 186,0 | |
| 5 | 6 | India Red | 9 | 6 | 0 | 3 | 12 | 18,5 | 0 | 367,8 | 190,5 | |
| 6 | 8 | Turkey | 9 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 11 | 20,5 | 2 | 390,3 | 180,0 | |
| 7 | 5 | Uzbekistan | 9 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 11 | 20,5 | 0 | 411,3 | 190,0 | |
| 8 | 17 | Indonesia | 9 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 10 | 21,5 | 0 | 316,8 | 149,5 | |
| 9 | 11 | Kazakhstan | 9 | 5 | 0 | 4 | 10 | 20,0 | 0 | 329,0 | 174,0 | |
| 10 | 9 | Israel | 9 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 10 | 19,5 | 0 | 376,5 | 178,0 | |
| 11 | 13 | Mongolia | 9 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 10 | 19,5 | 0 | 360,8 | 179,5 | |
| 12 | 10 | Belarus | 9 | 5 | 0 | 4 | 10 | 19,5 | 0 | 340,5 | 180,5 | |
| 13 | 7 | India Blue | 9 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 9 | 21,0 | 2 | 377,5 | 169,5 | |
| 14 | 15 | Canada | 9 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 9 | 21,0 | 0 | 306,8 | 166,5 | |
| 15 | 18 | Iraq | 9 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 9 | 18,5 | 0 | 244,0 | 144,5 | |
| 16 | 14 | Malaysia | 9 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 9 | 18,0 | 0 | 286,3 | 161,5 | |
| 17 | 20 | South Africa A | 9 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 9 | 16,0 | 0 | 268,5 | 162,0 | |
| 18 | 12 | Argentina | 9 | 4 | 0 | 5 | 8 | 19,0 | 0 | 327,0 | 162,0 | |
| 19 | 16 | Bangladesh | 9 | 4 | 0 | 5 | 8 | 18,0 | 0 | 306,5 | 167,0 | |
| 20 | 19 | Sri Lanka | 9 | 4 | 0 | 5 | 8 | 18,0 | 0 | 283,5 | 159,5 | |
| 21 | 24 | South Africa B | 9 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 8 | 17,0 | 0 | 176,0 | 136,0 | |
| 22 | 23 | Nepal A | 9 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 7 | 16,0 | 0 | 146,5 | 118,0 | |
| 23 | 27 | Kyrgyzstan | 9 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 7 | 15,0 | 0 | 204,8 | 142,0 | |
| 24 | 21 | Australia | 9 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 7 | 15,0 | 0 | 195,8 | 155,0 | |
| 25 | 26 | Kenya - Simba | 9 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 7 | 12,0 | 0 | 108,5 | 135,0 | |
| 26 | 28 | Mozambique | 9 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 6 | 13,5 | 0 | 125,5 | 128,5 | |
| 27 | 22 | Thailand | 9 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 6 | 12,0 | 0 | 135,8 | 149,0 | |
| 28 | 25 | Nepal B | 9 | 1 | 1 | 7 | 3 | 6,0 | 0 | 36,0 | 138,0 | |
| 29 | 29 | Kenya - Ndovu | 9 | 0 | 1 | 8 | 1 | 8,0 | 0 | 75,3 | 124,0 | |
| 30 | 30 | Uganda | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0,0 | 0 | 0,0 | 108,0 |
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