Ashish, Mariyam emerge fastest in U20 athletics meet
LUCKNOW : Athletes from western districts of the state continued to hog limelight even on Day Two of the UP State Under-20 Athletics Championship, at the OEF Stadium in Kanpur on Monday.
Out of 22 gold medals on the stake, 15 were won by the athletes from districts like Bulandsahar, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Hathras, Moradabad, Mathura, Sambhal, Bagpat, Saharanpur, Muzzafarnagar, Gautam Budh Nagar etc.
Ashish Rana of Bulandsahar clocked 11.06 seconds to emerge fastest in the men’s 100m, whereas Mariyam Parveen of Sitapur, who clocked 13.01 seconds, finished top in the women’s 100m dash.
Other gold medalists of the day included, Medhanjay Saxena, Lakshya, Abhishek Pal, Shivam Kumar, Virendra Saroj, Sachin Thakur, Anurag Singh Kaler, Shaban, Gaurav Kumar, Ankur Kumar, Akshi Malik, Jyoti Rani, Tanu Tonger, Mamta Pal, Soniya Kumari, Rishika, Vidhi, Tanya Chaudhary, Dolly Sonkar and Ragini.
CHESS FOR FANS
Chess Club Black and White (CCBW) with young chess fans in the age-group 6-12 years on Monday hosted a novel chess event combining online with over-the-board (OTB) chess as hundreds of their fans tuned in to play as teams with two young stars of Indian chess - International Master (IM) Nubair Shah Sheikh and Women’s International Master (WIM) Rucha Pujari exhibiting their class. The two chess stars upgraded their home studio acoustic systems and linked their computers to what is the world’s first rollable eboard. Though the two chess masters were connected
online from different cities, they were actually making the moves on a board instead of on the screen. “Chess witnessed an online boom during the lockdown and after the initial fizz, we all missed the real OTB experience,” said WIM Rucha Pujari. IM Nubair Shah added, “Staring at screens in deep thought for hours can really strain your eyes. We decided to get around that.” Both IM Nubair and WIM Rucha are top streamers among professional chess players of India on YouTube and Twitch. While IM Rucha brings a modern tech style to her shows, IM Nubair is the one adding all the crazy hilarious comments. “All our followers joined in from around the world and Indian fans were still awake even as the game continued till 3 am. We called it vote chess. Nubair’s team played White versus my followers as Black. According to the majority move suggested by my team, I made the move on the board. No staring at the screen. Similarly, IM Nubair played with his team. The moves got transmitted automatically.”
AITA TENNIS
As many as four from hosts Uttar Pradesh made it to the pre-quarterfinals of the AITA Men’s Tournament here on Monday. Favourite Kamlesh Shukla outplayed compatriot Shobhit Tandon 6-0, 6-0 in straight sets, whereas Govind Maurya brushed aside West Bengal’s Ankur Chirimar 6-1, 6-1 in other match of the day. Hanu Verma struggled a bit before winning against Manav Singh 6-2, 6-3, whereas Yash Verma defeated Shubhrokanti Ganguli 6-3, 6-3.
SNOOKER TOURNEY
One-sided matches continued to happen even on the second day of the North India Snooker Championship, at the Green Baize here on Monday with almost all the eight matches on the day were decided in straight frames. But the opening match of the day between Shanker Saini and Amir turned out to be most thrilling with Saini winning it by 3-2 (41-69; 62-15; 49-53; 73-8; 77-22).
FINE BATTING
Kritagya Singh slammed an unbeaten century (105), whereas Shaurya Singh (58) and Kruturaj Singh (89) struck sparkling half centuries as CAL Blue crushed Aligarh Sports Association by 72 runs in a league match of the Sujit Kumar Negi Memorial Under-25 Tournament, at the CSD Sahara Ground here on Monday.
BRIEF SCORES CAL Blue 299/4 in 40 overs
(Kritagya Singh 105*, Kruturaj Singh 89, Shaurya Singh 58) beat ASA 227 in 35.1 overs (Dalton Saraswat 46, Saqlain 38, Vishal Chaudhary 34, Satyam Pandey 3/33, Kritagya Singh 2/24, Chandresh Kumar 2/47).