October 2, 2007

By Satya Adhar 

Viswanathan "Vishy" Anand has won World Chess Championship Mexico 2007 in Palacio de Mineria in Mexico City. He defeated Russian GM Valdimir Kramnik to claim the title, and bronze came to Israeli GM Boris Gelfand. Anand finished the tournament with a score of 9/14, not losing a single game and a full point ahead of the rest of the players.

Anand is one of the biggest hero's of Indian sports scene. He is the king of World Chess but unfortunately have never received any awards and accolades as have been given to the cricketers of the country.

Anand's rise in the Indian chess world was meteoric. National level success came early for him when he won the National Sub-Junior Chess Championship with a score of 9/9 in 1983 at the age of fourteen. He became the youngest Indian to win the International Master Title at the age of fifteen, in 1984. At the age of sixteen he became the National Champion and won that title two more times. He played games at blitz speed. In 1987, he became the first Indian to win the World Junior Chess Championship. In 1988, at the age of eighteen, he became India's first Grandmaster.

After several near misses, Anand finally won the FIDE World Chess Championship in 2000 after defeating Alexei Shirov 3.5 - 0.5 in the final match held at Teheran, thereby becoming the first Indian to win that title. He lost the title when Ruslan Ponomariov won the FIDE knockout tournament in 2002.

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