Kenya tops African Schools Individual Chess Championship
Team Kenya finished top in the 2021 African Schools Individual Chess Championship with 12 medals.
The Kenyan youngsters bagged three gold medals, four silver medals, and five bronze medals in the championship that took place in a Nairobi hotel from December 12 to 20.
Kenya’s Elizabeth Cassidy dominated the Under-11 girl's category by outwitting all her opponents to bag a whopping 9 points from nine rounds.
Cassidy cruised through the rounds easily, edging off opposition from South Africa, Malawi, Uganda and her compatriots to clinch gold medal.
“It feels really nice to win. I have been training really hard and my training has finally paid off,” said an ecstatic Cassidy.
“My goal now is to make it to the national team in the near future but it is not going to be easy because I have the likes of Woman Candidate Master (WCM) Joyce Nyaruai, Woman Fide Master (WFM) Mongeli Sasha and WCM Wanjiru Lucy to beat."she added. Cassidy is the only Kenyan player who bagged maximum points in the tournament.
South Africa’s Naidoo Kajol finished second with seven points, ahead of Bernice Wambui who garnered 6.5 points.
In the open section, Kenya’s Muiruri Don scored seven points to win silver, just half a point behind top seed Mungal Ethan of South Africa who scored 7.5 points.
Ingado Mercy gave Kenya gold after garnering 7.5 points by taking out Uganda’s Namirimu Britney in the final round of the Under-17 girls’ category.
After losing to Botswana’s WCM Refilwe Tsutsu in round seven, Mercy put up a spirited fight to beat Zimbabwe’s Mawire Rumbidzai and Uganda’s Namirimu Britney in the following two rounds respectively that propelled her to the top of the podium.
Jamie Obora from Kenya managed to take the third spot, winning bronze in the Under-13 open category, despite being humbled by his compatriot Paul Olando in the last round.
In the Under-13 girl’s category, WCM Shah Devashri secured the runner-up position with seven points, a point behind tournament leader and top seed, Malawian Dutt Lakshita.
Devashri had a shaky start after losing two games in rounds three and five but came back from behind to win five games in a row, which was not enough to overtake top seed Dutt.
In the toughest category - the Under-17 open, Kenya’s top seed Robert Mcligeyo took third place after scoring sex points while his compatriot Muchiri Rocky only managed 5.5 points to secure fifth place.
Kenya’s Candidate Master (CM) Lwanga Aguda bagged silver medal with 7.5 points in the Under-15 open category after drawing with Goliath Brimarion of South Africa in the last round. Aguda, the top seed in the category lost narrowly to gold medallist Pido Edwin of Uganda in an earlier highly contested round four clash. Uganda also took bronze.
Harry Kags of Kenya beat Zimbabwe’s Aidan Magudhu in the final round to secure bronze in the under nine open category. He trailed behind Uganda’s Mibiru Jayden who finished second with 8 points, and Ghana’s Acheampong Dave who finished top with nine points.
In the under seven open, Manyeki Nathaniel narrowly missed the podium after attaining six points to secure fourth position. Ghana and South Africa clinched the top three spots.
Elsie Kamoni of Kenya won the gold medal in the under seven girls' category with four points while her compatriot Kaburo Winnie took silver with the same number of points.
South Africa came second in the standing, garnering 10 medals followed by Uganda and Ghana with four medals each. Malawi and Botswana secured three medals each.
The championship attracted 166 players from Kenya, Botswana, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe.
Kenya and South Africa were fielding the largest number of players at 67 and 41 respectively. BY DAILY NATION
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