Gukesh’s show at Chess Olympiad was just breathless: Viswanathan Anand

Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand, the team’s mentor, heaped praise on Gukesh’s run at the Olympiad. The Indian legend revealed how he found it difficult to keep pace with the youngster’s progress in the last few months. “It was just a breathless performance (by him) and we couldn’t keep up with it.

(His rise) has been quite dramatic because now I am evaluating a different chess player to the one I did back in May this year. He entered the top-100 in April and now he has moved to the top-20. Probably I will need to sit down and do the evaluation again,” said Anand, during an event on Wednesday to announce the fourth edition of Tata Steel rapid and blitz chess tournament --- which will be held in Kolkata from November 29-December 4.

Apart from the open category, this year’s tournament will also feature a women’s category event with the same format --- rapid and blitz. For Anand, the biggest takeaway from the Olympiad was the performance dished out by the youngsters. “Gukesh has been the biggest success story of the tournament but others in the team like R Praggnanandhaa, Nihal Sarin, Raunak Sadhwani and B Adhiban too did a terrific job.

Everyone played their part. Nihal and Adhiban were consistent, while Praggu and Raunak delivered during crunch moments. Also, for India 1 --- Arjun Erigaisi was in great form, got better as the tournament progressed and breached the 2700 ELO barrier in the live ratings which is a tremendous achievement,” the 52-year-old said.