Western Asia Youth Chess Ch'ship: Mumbai lad Rishabh Shah wins 2 bronze medals

Mumbai: Rishabh Shah from Mumbai won two bronze medals in the under-14 rapid and blitz formats of the 2nd Western Asia Youth Chess Championship which recently
concluded at Waskaduwa in Sri Lanka.

Third-ranked Rishabh (ELO 1,667 points), who trains at the South Mumbai Chess Academy, started with a win against Sri Lanka's Alwala A D Hansaja Ramith in the opening round.

After that the 14-year-old continued to produce decent results, but the loss to top ranked FM Mohammad Fahad Rahman of Bangladesh (ELO 2,153 points) and a couple of draws dashed his chances of finishing with the gold.

However, Rishabh managed to finish with a tally of five points from a possible seven, and had to settle with the bronze.

In the blitz format, he could only manage 4.5 points but it was good enough for him to earn the bronze medal.

"It's an honour to represent and win medals for our country. Winning the world chess title is my goal," he said.

Sri Lanka's Candidate Master G M H Thilakarathne (ELO 1,781) picked the gold with a tally of six points, while Bangladesh's Mohammad Fahad Rahman finished with 5.5 points to bag the silver.

The blitz gold was won by Mohammad Fahad Rahman (six points) and Thilakarathne (5.5 points) took the silver.