Indian team Velammal Nexus School wins World School Chess Tournament at Expo 2020
The Indian team Velammal Nexus School was proclaimed champion of the World School Chess Tournament after beating the Peruvian School Saco Oliveros during the finals of the competition at Dubai Exhibition Centre of Expo 2020 Dubai.
The Indian player from Velammal School Gukesh Dommaraju, 15 years old and Grandmaster, said, “We were favorites to win the tournament, but the Peruvian team fought, and they were quite close, it was a very interesting game”.
The closing ceremony took place on Monday evening at the Spain Pavilion in the presence of Reem bint Ibrahim Al Hashemy, Minister of State for International Cooperation and Director-General of Expo 2020 Dubai; and José Manuel Franco, Spanish Secretary of State for Sports.
During her speech, Al Hashemy said, “I would like to first thank all our friends and our colleagues from Spain for your successful conception and delivery of such a splendid tournament and appropriate celebration of a game that was introduced to the Iberian Peninsula by Arab travelers”.
She added that “at Expo, we are honoured to welcome Chess events and activities over the coming weeks, the FIDE World Chess Championship is already taking place at Dubai Exhibition Centre and before the end of December we will also welcome the Dubai Sports Council Cup”.
Secretary Franco said, “we are grateful for being able to host the final rounds of this chess tournament on-site, I would like to congratulate and highlight the enormous effort of all the institutions and federations involved”.
He added that “chess is a vehicle which allows us to connect the historical relationship between the Arab and the Spanish culture”.
During the Award Ceremony, representatives of the Emirati and Israeli teams played a friendly game.
The event concluded with the unconventional flamenco show ‘Con-vivencias’ on the giant chessboard of the Spain Pavilion and performed by the artists Manuel Liñán and David Carpio.
The finals of the World School Chess Tournament were held from 25th to 29th November in the Spain Pavilion at Expo Dubai 2020 with the participation of 118 young people from 10 different countries and 12 teams.
WAM
