Anand crashes in penultimate round

World number two Viswanathan Anand crashed to a shocking defeat as Indian men suffered another humiliation going down to a low ranked Canada by a 1.5-2.5 margin in the 12th and penultimate round at the Chess Olympiad.

Anand lost early against Pascal Charbonneau on the top board and that set the tone for another disaster as Surya Shekhar Ganguly was also stunned by unheralded International Master Thomas Roussel-Roozmon later in the day.

Former World Junior champion P Harikrishna saved some blushes for the Indians with a victory on the third board against Krnan Tomas while Krishnan Sasikiran could only manage a draw against GM Mark Bluvshtein on the second.

The second seeded Indian team struggled from the first round despite starting as the second favourites in the 37th edition of the Olympiad.

Meanwhile, at the top of the tables, Armenia took a huge 2.5 points lead over nearest rivals China with a clinical 2-2 draw with France without much ado.

Armenian players settled for peace pretty quickly while the Chinese men had to work hard for a 3-1 victory over Czech republic and now they are firmly in second place on 31.5 points, a half point adrift of nearest rival Russia.

Russian also did well to beat Cuba by a 3-1 margin and even as Armenia is now almost confirmed for the gold medal the fight for the silver is still on between Russia and China.

Category: Chess , The Chess Olympiad