The 11th Asian Schools Chess Championships ended with the team last to arrive managing to still finish the overall champions.
Perennial champions India had to be satisfied with the largest number of medals as the much smaller Philippine contingent managed to haul in six Gold, four Silver and one Bronze for a total of 11 medals.
The five Gold won by India however allowed them to stay ahead of the four won by Mongolia and Kazakhstan who finished third and fourth respectively.
Hosts Singapore would have been happy with the two Gold and two Silver won and fifth place as sixth placed Uzbekistan who also had two Gold, and in fact five medals, only one was Silver.
China won the remaining Gold medal to be in seventh. From the 19 participating nations, in fact as many as 13 won medals.
Hisham Al-Taher, Secretary of the Asian Chess Federation was the guest of honour at the closing ceremony were the many prizes were given away.
The Singapore Chess Federation would have been pleased to have run an excellent event and more so with their big hope in Liu Xiangyi emerging the winner in the prestigious Open U-17 while a younger talent has come together, Cyrus Nisban starting to fulfill his potential with an impressive victory in a very competitive Open U-11.
Final medal tally:
RANK / FEDERATION / GOLD / SILVER / BRONZE / TOTAL
1 Philippines: 6 4 1 11
2 India: 5 8 6 19
3 Mongolia: 4 2 4 10
4 Kazakhstan: 4 2 2 8
5 Singapore: 2 2 4
6 Uzbekistan: 2 1 2 5
7 China: 1 1 2 4
8 Sri Lanka: 0 2 1 3
9 Kyrgyzstan: 0 1 1 2
10 Hong Kong: 0 1 0 1
11 Indonesia: 0 0 2 2
11 New Zealand: 0 0 2 2
13 U A E: 0 0 1 1
14 Australia –
14 Chinese Taipei –
14 Malaysia –
14 Maldives –
14 Myanmar –
14 South Korea –
News and photos by Peter Long
