World Championships Rapid and Blitz: Vaishali clinches world blitz bronze

India’s R Vaishali clinched a bronze medal in the women’s section of the World Blitz Championship, capping another strong performance by the country’s chess players after stalwart Koneru Humpy’s title-winning show in the rapid event here.

Vaishali defeated China’s Zhu Jiner 2.5-1.5 in the quarterfinals before losing to another Chinese opponent Ju Wenjun 0.5-2.5 in the semifinals. In an event completely dominated by the Chinese, Wenjun went on to snare the world title defeating compatriot Lei Tingjie 3.5-2.5.

Five-time world champion and international chess federation (FIDE) vice president Viswanathan Anand congratulated Vaishali for her efforts, saying it was a great way to end the year.

“Congratulations to Vaishali for taking bronze. Her qualification was truly a power packed performance. Our Waca Chess mentee (WestBridge Anand Chess Academy) has done us proud,” Anand posted online. “We are so happy to be supporting her and her chess. What a way to wrap up 2024. In 2021, we thought we would get stronger chess players but here we have it a World Champion (Humpy) and a Bronze medallist (Vaishali)!”

In the open section, world No. 1 Magnus Carlsen and Russia’s Ian Nepomniachtchi shared the blitz title after three sudden-death games failed to produce a winner. This was the first time that the title was awarded to two players after Carlsen asked whether it could be shared given the deadlock.

“We were both tired, some will like it some will not,” Carlsen said during a media interaction. “We reached a point where it had been a long day. We played many games, we had three draws and I felt that I could keep playing. But it was a nice solution to share the win, it was a good way to end it,” he added.

This was Carlsen’s second big win this week as the world body was forced to bring him back after his withdrawal from the rapid championship just a couple of days back due to dress code violation.