Woman Fide Master Saina Salonika of Odisha got the bronze medal in the National Sub-Junior Under-15 Girls’ Chess Championship, which was held in Ahmedabad on Monday.
Saina scored 8.5 points by winning eight games, drawing one game and losing two games out of eleven rounds. Divya Deshmukh of Maharashtra clinched the title with 9.5 points and Sanskriti Goyal of UP got the silver medal with 9 points
By winning this bronze, Saina is selected to represent India in the World Youth Chess Championship-2018 in Greece and the Asian Youth Chess Championship-2018 in Thailand.
This is the fifth medal of Saina in the national level. She won gold medal in the National U-7 Girls’ Chess Championship in 2010, She also won gold medal in the National U-9 School Chess Championship 2012 and silver medal in National U-13 Chess Championship in 2016 and bronze medal in the National U-11 Chess Championship in 2014
Saina has pocketed 12 international medals, which include eight gold medals, two silver medals and two bronze medals. The most coveted among them is the World title in the U-12 Girl category in 2013 in All-Ain, UAE.
Saina, daughter of Ganeswar Jena and Babita Jena, originally hails from Sulan village of Hatadihi block in Keonjhar district. She is now pursuing her study in Grade-IX of the KIIT International School, Bhubaneswar.