The All India Chess Federation (AICF) on Monday announced a 20-member squad for the 44th Chess Olympiad as India gears up to host the tournament in Chennai from July 28 to August 10.
Being hosts, India are entitled to field two teams each — in the Open category as well as in the women’s section — with five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand as the mentor of the home teams.
Vidit Gujrathi, who led India to gold in the 2020 Chess Olympiad, held virtually, will be part of India’s first team in the Open section alongside Pentala Harikrishna, Krishnan Sasikiran, Arjun Erigaisi and SL Narayanan.
The second team will comprise of R. Praggnanandhaa, Nihal Sarin, D. Gukesh and Raunak Sadhwani.
In the women’s section, the first team will have Koneru Humpy, world No. 10 Harika Dronavalli, Tania Sachdev, R. Vaishali and Bhakti Kulkarni. The second team will consist of national champions Soumya Swaminathan, Bengal’s Mary Ann Gomes and Padmini Rout along with Vantika Agarwal and 15-year-old Divya Deshmukh
