The KIIT Team won the 18th National Cities Team Chess Championship title, which was concluded at Kalarabank on Thursday.
The tournament was jointly organised by the KIIT University and the 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, Kolkata-2 and KISS teams secured second, third and fourth position respectively. All these top four teams selected for the Asian Cities Chess Championship to be held at the KIIT from August 26 to September 1, 2017. The champion team won trophy with cash prize worth of Rs 25,000 while the runners up team won trophy with 15,000, top third got Rs 10,000 and top fourth team got trophy with Rs 5,000 cash prize.
Higher Education Minister Ananta Das, Sports and Youth Affairs Minister Chandra Sarathi Behera and OPSC member Brigadier lC Patnaik graced the valedictory function and distributed prizes.
KIIT and KISS founder Dr Achyuta Samanta delivered the welcome address while AOCA president Sekhar Sahoo proposed a vote of thanks. NMCT Antaryami Samanta 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 city teams from Odisha, Haryana, West Bengal, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Telangana participated. More than 150 chess players participated. The KIIT team comprised Swanshu Mishra, Sekhar Ch. Sahoo, Utkal Ranjan Sahoo, Saina Salonika and Kiran Manisha Mohanty.