It has been reported that Grandmaster and reigning Commonwealth champion Abhijeet Gupta has been nominated for the highly esteemed Arjuna award. In addition, his long time trainer Vishal Sareen has been selected by All India Chess Federation (AICF) as a nominee for Dronacharya award this year.
Recently, Gupta won a gold medal in the Commonwealth Championship extending his long haul of medals for the country which also includes a bronze in the Asian continental championship. Notably, the 23-year-old had won an individual silver in the Chess Olympiad too for his brilliant individual performance.
Remarkably, Gupta is the only Indian next to world champion Viswanathan Anand and P Harikrishna to have won the World Junior Chess Championship. Actually, he was a member of the Indian team that won silver medal in the Asian team chess championship in China last year.
International Master Vishal Sareen was selected for the Dronacharya due to the excellent results accomplished by his students. Both Tania Sachdev and Parimarjan Negi were the last two Arjuna awardees in Chess whom Sareen had trained.
In fact, Abhijeet Gupta has been his protege for more than 7 years along with young Grandmasters Akshayraj Kore and Sahaj Grover. CEO, AICF Bharat Singh Chauhan declared that the AICF had gone through the best possible candidates both for Arjuna and Dronacharya awards. Both Gupta and Sareen are the excellent selections that they have currently.
