8-year-old Alana Meenakshi makes Vizag proud again

Visakhapatnam: Alana Meenakshi, an 8-year-old girl, from the city made the country proud by bagging three medals at Western Asian Youth and Junior Chess Championship which concluded in New Delhi on Wednesday.

The young player competed with 24 countries and bagged two gold medals in Rapid and Blitz apart from a bronze medal in classic format in the international event.

When asked about her recent achievements, the young chess champion says, "It makes me feel wonderful to stand out amidst stiff competition. However, I still feel that I could have performed better so that I could have bagged three gold medals."

Talking about her intense practice, Meenakshi adds, "My practice for the Western Asian Junior Championship has been pretty intense than what I did for my previous tournament."

Western Asian Youth and Junior Chess championship had tough competitors from all over the globe. Around 24 countries participated in the championship, and little Alana competed with Bangladesh, UAE and Sri Lanka. "Well, the opponents were extremely good. I competed with the international players from UAE, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka along with the Indian players," says the student of Timpany School.

Earlier achievements

Meenakshi has earlier bagged two gold medals at the Asian Youth Chess Championship 2019 held in Sri Lanka. Interestingly, the 8-year-old is also an official Indian representative for 2019 Under-8 girls World Cadet, Asian Youth, Commonwealth, Western Asian Youth and Under-9 girls Chess championship for World Schools and Asian Schools.

Also, she made it to the top 15 in the country in girls' category and earned the eligibility for the next year's all under 10 international events. The young champion had also participated in the world's biggest battle of brains in cadets in China, where she officially represented India in the World Cadet Chess Championship 2019 and finished in top 15 in the world.