Indians optimistic of doing
well at Chess Olympiad

The 35th Chess Olympiad was inaugurated in the Sports Hall of Bled by Slovenian President Milan Kucan, the honorary president of the Olympiad, on Friday.

The Olympiad, which is considered greater than the official World Chess Championship, has 144 teams in the men's category and 100 in the women's.

A major name missing from the star participants gathered in Bleed is India's Viswanathan Anand, who won the World Cup at Hyderabad last week.

The best players are undoubtedly Russians -- the defending champions -- who are spearheaded by the world's highest rated Gary Kasparov and the Chinese women's team, led by the world women champion Xie Zhun.

The Indian teams are in high spirits and will definitely pose a challenge to the Russian and European teams. Tamil Nadu's Krishnan Sasikiran and Vijayalakhmi Subbaraman, captaining the men and women teams respectively, are optimistic of getting into the top ten. In the absence of Kolkata's GM Dibyendu Barua, the veteran Maharastrian GM Praveen Thipsay has been included in the men's team along with Abhijit Kunte, Surya Sekar Ganguly, Pendyala Harikrishna and R B Ramesh.

The Indian women's team, comprising young Vijayalakshmi, her sister S Meenakshi, former world Under-20 girls' champion Aarthie Ramaswamy and Swati Ghate, is definitely in good form after plenty of tournaments and coaching programmes.

Schedule of Events
26 Oct: 1st Round
27 Oct: 2nd Round
28 Oct: 3rd Round
29 Oct: 4th Round
30 Oct: 5th Round
31 Oct: 6th Round
1 Nov: 7th Round
2 Nov: 8th Round
3 Nov: Free day
4 Nov: 9th Round
5 Nov: 10th Round
6 Nov: 11th Round
7 Nov: 12th Round
8 Nov: 13th Round
9 Nov: Free day
10 Nov: 14th Round
10 Nov: Closing Ceremony<