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Raipur, Jun 16: Although he is not able to listen with his eyes but still has superior understanding of the moves in life on Chess Board with Black and White pieces. Now the hearing-impaired Mahendra Pal from Chhattisgarh will represent India in the 18th ICCD Deaf Chess Olympiad to be held in Manchester England next month with all his strong determination to achieve recognition. Pal is among the four players selected to represent India in the Open Individual event of the Blind Chess tournament. He has been picked in the team on the basis of his performance in the XX National Chess Championship of the Deaf held recently at Ranital Sports Complex Jabalpur in neighbouring Madhya Pradesh. Pal and Siddhesh U Dharmaadhikari from Maharashtra have been selected in Men’ category whereas Suman Bhambu and Swati Jangid from Rajasthan would be part of the Women’ team from India. According to the information received, the World Chess championship would be held at Manchester from July 6 to 16, for which the selected players have been asked to submit their Audiogram and other required documents for the participation in the Global event. All India Sports Council of the Deaf would be co-ordinating the participation of the players from India.
It is a big achievement for Mahendra Pal to participate in the International Blitz Chess Championship who hails from a small town of Takhatpur in Bilaspur region. The 33-year old Mahendra Pal reaches Takhatpur from his native village Padaria to practice at the Chess Club with his partners Dineshwar Thakur, Ramkumar Thakur, Awdhesh Thakur, Narendra Pandey, Arvnd Pandey, Dinesh Vaishnav and Rakesh Mishra. Chess enthusiasts from the region are overwhelmed with the selection of Mahendra Pal in the International event.
