NAGPUR: The City of Oranges will play host to the World Youth Chess Championship slated to be held for the first time in India.
Having won the bid to conduct the World Youth and Junior Chess Championships in the country next year, the All India Chess Federation (AICF) in its central council meeting at New Delhi on Saturday “trusted on the organizing capacity of Nagpur” before allotting the prestigious U-18 event.
The World Chess Federation (Fide) conducts 15 world-level tournaments in a year and the AICF gave a successful bid to host two events during the 88th Fide World Congress held in Turkey last year.
While Nagpur District Chess Association (NDCA) will be the official host of the youth championship, the World junior meet will be conducted in Delhi.
Ths secretary of the AICF Bharat Singh Chauhan said, “We have the trust in the organizing capacity of Nagpur. They have successfully and very professionally conducted the Commonwealth Chess Championship and many National events in the past and that’s the reason we chose Nagpur as a host for the World Youth Chess Championship.”
The meet is likely to the held in October next year. Chauhan also informed that the AICF team will visit the city next month to finalize the venue.
Senior administrator of the city and AICF vice president Manoj Itkelwar attended the central council meeting in Delhi. Confirming the development and welcoming the AICF decision, Itkelwar said, “India will host its first World Youth chess meet and in the historic first the AICF allotted this prestigious event to Nagpur. This is a great honour for Nagpur that the AICF has considered us eligible to hold this important event of Fide.”
Looking at the performance of young Indian players in the World Cadet Championships, the AICF decided to bid for the youth tournament and for the first time since 1976, when the Fide started conducting World Youth championships, India will host the all-important event for the upcoming masters of 64 squares.
Young masters from around 70 chess playing countries will be seen in action during the youth meet to be held in three age categories in both the open and girls’ group. The meet will be played in the U-18, U-16 and U-14 age groups and the chess governing body will crown six world champions from this meet.
During the youth meet, the official entry of team consisted of six members and around 400 players in each category will likely to be seen making their moves in the city.
Itkelwar added: “The AICF trusted our organizing capacity before giving us a chance to become a host. I hope to see all coming together to make this a memorable event.”
Earlier in 2008, the NDCA successfully conducted the Commonwealth Chess Championships before playing host to a Grandmaster meet in 2014 and many national events. With three young minds including two-time World Cadet Chess champion Divya Deshmukh, Mrudul Dehankar and Raunak Sadhwani making waves on the chequered boxes around the globe, the World Youth meet in their own city will only bring happy news for them.
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