Chess meet 

Chess players Yashita Rout and Priansh Das bagged silver by finishing second in the 29th National Under-7 Chess Championship in Chennai recently. Bhubaneswar girl Yashita and Karnataka's K.G.R. Anagha tied for top spot in the girls’ category with nine points each. But Anagha won the title owing to the Buchholz tie-break method.

Nilsu Pattnayak of Cuttack won the IMT All-Odisha Open School Chess Tournament at the IMT Pharmacy College in Puri. Pattnayak earned 8.5 points, while Om Mishra  from Khurda and Yasoman Patro from Puri finished second and third with eight and seven points, respectively. Altogether 104 players from seven districts participated in the three-day tournament organised by the District Chess Association of Puri. 

Sports day

Hockey Olympian Birendra Lakra received the Biju Patnaik award for outstanding performance in sports for 2014. Chief minister Naveen Patnaik handed over the awards  on Sports Day at the Jayadev Bhavan. Purnima Hembram, Srabani Nanda, Ashok Sahu, Nanda Kishore Patnaik and Satish Sharma won awards in different categories. The Football Association of Odisha organised an exhibition match between Cuttack District U-19 Football Team and Odisha United Football Club to commemorate National Sports Day at Ravenshaw University. 

Football glory 

The Bureaucrats XI emerged winners in the Tata Steel Friendship Tournament at the Kalinga Stadium to secure their fifth consecutive football title. They defeated Media XI 3-1 in a tiebreaker. The Bureaucrats XI beat Legislators XI 1-0 in the semi-final. In the other semi-final, Media XI beat Tata Steel 4-3 via penalty shootout. The MCL Cup Inter-School Football Tournament, formerly known as the Kalinga Marine Vivekananda Memorial Inter-School Football Tournament, is under way at Unit-VI Government Boys High School ground from August 18. The tournament is organised by Unit-VI Athletic Association and features 27 schools. 

Badminton event

The Odisha State Senior and Junior U-19 Badminton Championship will begin from September 2 at NTPC, Angul. The event will include men, women and U-19 singles and doubles and mixed doubles matches. Odisha State Badminton Association secretary Pradip Mohanty said that the state champions would represent Odisha in the National 
championships.

Snooker league

The first Odisha Snooker Premier League will begin from Wednesday at the Vintage Club in Bhubaneswar. The format includes league matches and then semi-final and eliminator matches. Top players such as Subrat Das, Ahsan Ul Haque, Rakesh Pradhan, Jiten Sarangi, Chirag Arora and many others will play for the franchises that bought them at the player auction. The teams include Q-ing Saddles owned by Autojinx; Baize Rulers owned by Blue Tech Products; Purple Squirrel owned by Purple Squirrel and Blue Hawks owned by JS Industries and Cresco Constructors. The tournament will conclude on September 6 and the prize money for winners is Rs 60,000.

 NAMITA PANDA