Viswanathan Anand beat Boris Gelfand to win his 5th FIDE World Chess Championship

May 30, 2012

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New Delhi, May 30: Viswanathan Anand retained his World Chess Championship title after defeating his challenger Boris Gelfand of Israel 2.5-1.5 in a crunch 4-game tiebreaker in Moscow on Wednesday. Anand finished off the championship match with a draw in the fourth tiebreaker game.

With this, Anand won his fifth world chess championship title and fourth-in-a-row after winning the ultimate glory in 2000, 2007, 2008 and 2010.

After the 12-game championship matches ended in 6-6 tie, Anand and Gelfand started the tiebreaker with a draw too. But playing with white, Anand bounce back in the second game to beat his opponent and took a crucial 1 point lead.

Anand managed to hold Gelfand for another draw in the third game with black pieces to maintain the one-point lead ahead of the all-important fourth and final rapid game.

There have been only three World Chess Championship matches that have been decided on tiebreaks: Vishy Anand's loss to Anatoly Karpov of Russia in the 1998 final at Lucerne, Rustam Kasimdzhanov's title win in 2004 and Vladimir Kramnik's success against Veselin Topalov in 2006.

The system of tiebreaks has not been in force in the World championship for long but of the three tiebreak triumphs, only one came after the traditional match play (Kramnik vs Topalov over 12 games). Karpov and Kasimdzhanov had triumphed after playing only six classical games.

As per Anand's performances in championship matches go, the Indian ace had won three out of four decisive games against Russian Vladimir Kramnik in 2008 while in 2010 against Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria, Anand had won three out of five decisive games to stake his claim for the world title.

In the post-match chat after game-12, Gelfand was a bit defensive on this.

"We are playing for the crown and not only to entertain, besides there are many highly qualified commentators who can explain it to the uninformed spectators," he had said.

Before this mega-tiebreaker, Anand and Gelfand have played 28 times in rapid chess and the Indian has won eight, lost one and drawn the remaining.

In blitz, they have played seven games with three wins for Anand and the rest being drawn.

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Agencies
January 26,2020

Mumbai, Jan 26: Boxing great Mary Kom has been selected for the Padma Vibhushan, the country's second highest civilian award. Olympic silver medallist and reigning badminton World Champion PV Sindhu has been named for Padma Bhushan as the names of Padma awardees were disclosed on Saturday on the eve of the 71st Republic Day.

Rated as one of the most successful amateur boxers of all time, Mary Kom won bronze at the 2012 London Olympics and has won gold at the boxing World Championships for a record six times. She has won a total of eight medals at the World Championships, the most recent of which came in October 2019 in Ulan Ude, Russia. The 36-year-old is now looking to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Sindhu became the only Indian woman to win an Olympic silver when she reached the final of the women's singles event at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazi. In August last year, the 24-year-old became the first Indian to win gold at the badminton World Championships.

She has also won two silver and two bronze medals at the World's in the past, thus making her only the second woman after Chinese two-time Olympic gold medallist Zhang Ning to win five medals in the competition.

Indian women's hockey captain Rani Rampal, who has been the face of women's hockey in the country and played a pivotal role in the team qualifying for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, is among those who have been nominated for the Padma Shri award.

Women's football stalwart Oinam Bembem Devi, former cricketer Zaheer Khan, shooter Jitu Rai, former hockey captain and coach M.P. Ganesh and archer Tarundeep Rai are the other sportspersons to be selected for the Padma Shri award.

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Agencies
January 14,2020

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News Network
January 15,2020

Dubai, Jan 15: India skipper and batting mainstay Virat Kohli was on Wednesday named captain of the International Cricket Council's ODI and Test teams of the year, capping off a memorable season for the world No.1.

Apart from Kohli, there were four other Indians who were picked in the ICC's Test and ODI Teams of the Year.

While the Test team featured double-centurion Mayank Agarwal, opener Rohit Sharma, speedster Mohammed Shami and left-arm spinner Kuldeep Yadav found a place in the ODI side.

Kohli enjoyed a tremendous run in both the formats in 2019. The 31-year-old hit his seventh Test double hundred on the way to a career-best unbeaten 254 against South Africa in October last year.

It was a breakthrough year for opener Agarwal, who smashed two double tons, one century and went beyond the fifty-run mark twice. He hit a career-best score of 243 against Bangladesh in November.

Kuldeep, too, enjoyed a memorable year as he joined the golden list of bowlers with two hat-tricks. The chinaman claimed his second ODI hat-trick of his career against the West Indies last month.

In the absence of Indian pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah, Shami rose to the occasion making the best in the business hop, skip and jump with his pace, swing and bounce through the season. He scalped 42 wickets in 21 ODIs over the last 12 months.

The ICC's Teams of the Year 2019:

ODI Team of the Year (in batting order): Rohit Sharma, Shai Hope, Virat Kohli (captain), Babar Azam, Kane Williamson, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler (wicketkeeper), Mitchell Starc, Trent Boult, Mohammed Shami, Kuldeep Yadav

Test Team of the Year (in batting order): Mayank Agarwal, Tom Latham, Marnus Labuschagne, Virat Kohli (captain), Steve Smith, Ben Stokes, BJ Watling (wicketkeeper), Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Neil Wagner, Nathan Lyon.

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