The Indian ladies’s crew continued their march in direction of the gold medal after bringing down the mighty Georgian crew within the seventh round of the Chess Olympiad.
After seven rounds, India are the one crew with 14 factors identical to the Indian crew within the open part. Wednesday’s victory sees the Indian ladies’s crew take a two-point lead over Poland, Kazakhstan and France, who’re joint second within the standings if match factors are thought-about.
The star of the seventh spherical for India was worldwide grasp Vantika Agrawal who took down grandmaster Bella Khotenashvilli handy India the sting over Georgia. At that stage, there had been two attracts on the board with the Divya Deshmukh vs Nino Batsiashvili conflict and the Harika Dronavalli vs Nana Dzagnidze sport ending in attracts.
Vaishali later defeated Lela Javakhishvili to safe a cushty win for India within the seventh spherical of the Olympiad.
Georgia is a standard chess superpower. They’ve 9 medals in complete (4 gold, two silver, three bronze). However it should be famous that their newest Olympiad medal was a silver in 2022 after shedding an in depth contest with champions Ukraine. Their golds got here within the 90s, with the crew nonetheless led by the legendary Nona Gaprindashvili. They’ve had different superstars within the ladies’s part like Maia Chiburdanidze and Nana Ioseliani.
INTERACTIVE: How Vantika Agrawal took down grandmaster Bella Khotenashvilli
What was spectacular about Vantika Agrawal’s win in spherical 7 of the Olympiad was that she was beneath extreme time strain from the nineteenth transfer itself. She had beneath seven minutes left on the clock, that means she needed to make her subsequent 21 strikes in 17 minutes (contemplating she would get a 30-second increment per transfer).
By the twenty first transfer, Vantika’s time was decreased to only a minute on the clock whereas her opponent had 25 minutes.
Whereas the sport was nonetheless on stage phrases, Khotenashvilli made two essential selections that handed Vantika the benefit: 22. Qb5+?! and 26. g3?
By the twenty sixth transfer, Khotenashvilli’s benefit on the clock was additionally eroded with she having simply two minutes whereas Vantika had a minute.