How Vishwanathan Anand avoided power cut to stay in the Chess Olympiad
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Vishwanath Anand 1
India along with Russia was crowned the winners of the Chess Olympiad on Sunday. India has been crowned the champions for the very first time. This year tournament was different, as it was held in an online format for the first time.
Indian team was crowned champions in a dramatic fashion, as players faced many technical difficulty during final. Vishwanathan Anand has recently revealed that he was facing an issue of power cut during the tournament. He also revealed how India’s non-playing captain Srinath Narayanan arranged for electricity to Anand’s building.
How Anand avoided it?
Scheduled maintenance was to be taken in the Kottupuram locality in the Adyar zone Chennai. It was during India’s match against Armenia the power cut was to end.
Srinath contacted the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB) to provide electricity to his building despite the scheduled power cut.
“I was worried because this tournament was already giving some difficulties to Vishy,” Srinath said in an interview with the Indian Express.
“He had to do all this screen-sharing and had to be on the camera – all new and unfamiliar things for a few of our players. On top of this, he had to worry about his internet (connection). I didn’t want these kinds of distractions for him and felt that a few seconds could be lost. Losing that time is not a big deal, but the loss in concentration is,” felt Srinanth.
An IAS officer helped restoring power
Srinath contacted an IAS officer who had worked in the TNEB and asked for help. After which the officials stopped the renovation work and restored the power supply.
“I spoke to Dr Darez Ahamed, an IAS officer who is currently in London and asked him for help. He used to work in Tamil Nadu. He immediately got in touch with people in Chennai and I got a call from the executive engineer in Anand’s area. I gave him the match timings and requested him to ensure that no work would be going on during that time and in the next two days. They were more than happy to stop the renovation work and within an hour, power was restored.”
Humpy was also facing electricity issue
Koneru Humpy was also facing an issue of power fluctuation in the league stages. An engineer and a linesman were stationed at Humpy’s house after Srinath contacted the officials in Vijaywada.
“Koneru Humpy’s house was having power fluctuation problems in the league stages itself. That is why in the last two days of the league, she chose to take two quick draws against Georgia and China because we didn’t want the game to keep going for too long as we didn’t know when she could lose connection to the Chess.com website,” said Srinath.
Srinath later on also planned for an app called Speedify to help overcome power failure. Speedify is a Virtual Private Network(VPN) that helps in establishing multiple channels. In case of power failure, 10-15 seconds can be saved in establishing a connection again.
Also Read:India and Russia declared joint winners of FIDE Chess Olympiad
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