Chess Olympiad: Odisha’s Padmini Rout Named In Indian Women’s Team

Chennai: Padmini Rout, the top chess player from Odisha, has been named in the Indian women’s team for the 44th Chess Olympiad to be held in Chennai from July 28 to August 10.

The Woman Grandmaster (WGM) is part of the second women’s team along with Soumya Swaminathan, Mary Ann Gomes, Vantika Agarwal and Divya Deshmukh.

The 28-year-old Padmini is a four-time National Women’s Premier title-holder as well as Asian women’s champion.

Team 1 will comprise of Koneru Humpy, world No. 10 Harika Dronavalli, Tania Sachdev, R Vaishali and Bhakti Kulkarni.

As the host country, India are entitled to field two teams each in Open category and women’s section.

The teams have been formed on the basis of their Elo ratings.

Five-time World champion Viswanathan Anand will be the team mentor.

India won a bronze medal in the 2014 Tromso Chess Olympiad.

In the two virtual Olympiads, India won gold jointly with Russia in 2020 and the women’s team bagged bronze in 2021.

Teams for Open section

Team 1 — Vidit Gujrathi, Pentala Harikrishna, Krishnan Sasikiran, Arjun Erigaisi, SL Narayanan

Team 2 — Praggnanandhaa R, Nihal Sarin, Gukesh D, Raunak Sadhwani, Adbhiban B.