18th National Cities Team Chess Championship concludes KIIT (Odisha) Team Bags Champion Trophy

KIIT (Odisha) Team won the 18th National Cities Team Chess Championship Title, which was concluded at Kalarabank on 9th August. This tournament was jointly organized by KIIT University and Jagatsinghpur district Chess Association. It is for the first time in the country that, a national level chess event is being held in a rural area. Puri Senior (Odisha), Kolkata-2, KISS (Odisha) secured second, third and fourth position respectively. All these top four teams selected for the Asian Cities Chess Championship to be held at KIIT from 26th August to 1st September 2017. The champion team won trophy with cash prize worth of Rs. 25 thousand while the runners up team won trophy with 15 thousand, top third got 10 thousand and top fourth team got trophy with Rs. 5 thousand rupees cash prize. Ananta Das, State Minister (I) Higher Education and Chandra Sarathi Behera State Minister (I) Electronics & Information Technology, Sports & Youth Services and Brigadier L. C. Patnaik, Member OPSC graced the valedictory function and distributed prizes. Dr. Achyuta Samanta, Founder, KIIT & KISS delivered the welcome address while Sekhar Ch. Sahoo, President, AOCA proposed vote of thanks. Antaryami Samanta, President NMCT presided over the valedictory function. Such kind of National level Chess tournament held in a village for the first time is pride for Jagatsinghpur district and Odisha, opined the guests. As many as 31 cities teams including Odisha, Haryana, West Bengal, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Telengana have participated in the tournament. More than 150 chess players participated. In KIIT (Odisha) team Swanshu Mishra, Sekhar Ch. Sahoo, Utkal Ranjan Sahoo, Saina Salonika and Kiran Manisha Mohanty have participated in the tournament.