Grandmaster Abhimanyu Puranik beat Armenia’s Aram Hakobyam to clinch silver to finish behind Iran’s Parham Maghsoodloo at the 11-round World Junior Chess Championships.
The Indian finished with 8.5 points, one behind Maghsoodloo, who had sealed the top-spot in the penultimate round.
Puranik is the only medal winner for India at the event.
Seeded 23rd, Puranik trumped other fancied Indians in fray such as fourth seed M Karthikeyan, 10th seed Aravindh Chithambaram and 13th seed SL Narayanan to bag the medal. Incidentally, the second-best Indian finisher was 40th seed Harsha Bharathakoti who claimed ninth spot with 7.5 points in the table.
V Varshini was the best Indian finisher in the girls’ category, finishing 13th with seven points.