India’s one of the finest chess players Dronavalli Harika has made a tremendous progress in the last couple of years. Reaching the semi-finals of the Women’s World Chess Championship in 2012 was a big achievement before she lost to Antoaneta Stefanova.
Maintaining her consistency she then won the individual silver at the Women’s World Team Chess Championship 2015 held at Chengdu, China, where Koneru Humpy another Indian chess star had to be satisfied with the bronze.
Before she left for the ongoing Chess Olympiad Harika exuded confidence of India’s better performance and also mentioned that chess needs more encouragement in India.
SM: How do you rate India’s chances this time in the women category.
DH: I don’t want to assess or think about final results. We are starting as 5th seed and we will try to do give our best.
SM: Now, Indian team depending on you will put any pressure?
A. No pressure at all. It’s not like Indian team is going to depend on me as all 4 boards are equally important to get good results. All ii have in my mind is to just try and perform well to contribute my bit for the team. And hope we all will do well.
SM: How is the team composition and do you think India will miss Humpy’s experience?
DH: Of course we will miss Humpy, there is no doubt about it. And I mentioned we have good team.
MS:How have you personally prepared for this meet?
DH:.I took one month break for this event and prepared. I worked on different aspects of the game as well as on my physical fitness.
SM:Now Sindhu and Sakshi winning medals for India at Rio will boost the chess players as well?
DH: Not only chess players, any sports person will get inspired by the motivating and great stories from Rio.
SM: Will you agree that chess is losing its charm in India and if you say it is true why?
DH:I don’t agree that it is losing charm but yes it is not developing too. Mainly because its not a viewer friendly game, chess doesn’t get the attention it actually deserves. We have brilliant results from chess for the country and I am sure if people get to know the nitty-gritties of chess as a profession then popularity of chess can increase.
SM: Which teams are going to be tough at Olympiad?
DH:.Russia, China, Georgia and Ukraine.
SM: At World meet you did well last time and how far is gold for you?
DH:. I really hope its not too far but on a serious note, its difficult to guess the exact time frame to win the gold medal but yes i am sure that i will win the title some day for India.
SM; Happy with Indian govt support?
DH: Yes. I will take this chance to thank Indian govt for sponsoring my training under NSDF scheme from past three years. Central govt support has been always great but only if at all we can get the cash incentives for our medals on time without delay, it will be even more perfect.
