Ten year old Riya Savant - Brand Ambassador for Geno Pharmaceuticals
won the National Under 11 Girls Chess Championship at Ahmedabad today.
Riya becomes third Goan girl after Bhakti Kulkarni and Ivana Furtado to
win the National Gold for Goa. In the last round played on Saturday
morning, Riya outplayed Anjali Manoj of Kerala with a series of
brilliant moves.
Riya was tied with R.Vaishali and Sunyukhta (Both Tamil Nadu) on 8.5
points but emerged winner on better tie break. Riya's trainer
Dronacharya Raghunandan Gokhale was very happy with the outcome. "Riya
displayed fantastic fighting spirit after losing the penultimate round.
She really played like a true Champion," said the veteran coach.
Riya, a student of St.Mary's School in Mapusa was accompanied by her
father Dharmanand who is also a chess player himself. She was prepared
during the Championship by Gokhale's assistant and International rated
player Sumukh Gaikwad. Dharmanand said that Riya had missed many
opportunities to win Gold in the past but this time she was determined
not to lose this golden opportunity. He gave credit of Riya's gold to
the financial aid of Mr. Dilip Salgaocar of Geno Pharmaceuticals.
Bhakti Congratulates Riya
Riya was thrilled by the shower of congratulatory messages from Goa but
the one she will treasure most was from Bhakti Kulkarni who is leading
in the Asian Junior Championship at Colombo. "Riya proved that she is
made of stronger stuff and snatched the victory from jaws of defeat.
Congrats to the young Champion and the Savant family," said Bhakti in
her sms.
Rajaryan Kuvelkar scored 8 points to stand creditable 10th among boys.
Other Goans scored 7 points in both Boys and girls sections. They were
Tatvesh Savant, Anant Prabhudesai, Nitish Belurkar, Riddhi Zantye and
Aditi Prabhugaokar.
Source: Raghunandan Gokhale
Goanet Sports
www.goanet.org
