|
Martyn Kravtsiv & Alexandra Kosteniuk win WMSG Blitz Individual Golds |
 |
|
Sunday, 05 October 2008 13:23 |
1st World Mind Sports Games continues with the Rapid Individuals but the 1st World Mind Sports Games has its first champions.
In the Blitz Individual Mens event, the Gold Medal went to unfancied young Ukrainian GM Martyn Kravtsiv who surprised the strong competition to take the honors.
Yesterday's preliminary round winner GM Mark Paragua of the Philippines did not have a good start at today's semi-final and lost 2-0 to GM Yuri Drozdovskij 2-0. And Kravtsiv in the other semi-final also defeated GM Chirstodoulos Banikas of Greece with a similar 2-0 score and then repeated this achievement again against Drozdovskij in the all important final.
If it comes to any official big chess event for women, watch out for GM Alexandra Kosteniuk. After taking the World Rapid Chess Championship and the World Chess Championship titles, the Queen of Russian chess won gold as well in the 1st World Mind Sports Games Blitz Individual Womens event.
In the preliminary rounds, the top seeded young Chinese star Hou Yifan was a convincing winner, including a sixth round victory over Kosteniuk and both qualified for the semi-finals together with the impressive ex World Champion GM Antoaneta Stefanova and another in form Chinese player Zhao Xue.
In the first semi-final Stefanova defeated Hou 2-1, while Kosteniuk did not leave any chances to Zhao and won 2-0. In the final match, it was a difficult battle of world champions, but nerves told in the end and Stefanova lost 1-2 to Kosteniuk who was again a big winner.
Full coverage of chess and other mind sports is available at the official www.2008wmsg.org/en and as always live games are broadcast daily at www.2008wmsg.fide.com courtesy of the FIDE Elista team.
|
