Pune: Local boy, Akshay Borgaonkar showed her class to claim the gold and silver medal in the Under-9 age group category during the 14th Asian School Chess Championship held in Sri Lanka recently.
Akshay who is a fourth grade student of Vikhe Patil Memorial School claimed yellow metal in blitz format while he settled for silver medal in classical format. As many as 48 players from 10 countries took part in the event.
Akshay who trains at Kunte Chess Academy was seeded third for the tournament. Akshay got a double black colour in the last round of the classic format in a must win situation.
Akshay was up against another Indian player for four and a half hours and he was one pawn down but finally won the contest to last round taking the silver.
In the blitz format Akshay won all his rounds and faced top seeded Uzbek player Trompowsky in the final. Akshay played d4 with a Trompowsky attacking against him.
This very unlikely opening from Akshay rattled the top seed, who agreed for a draw, which enabled Akshay to win the gold by half point difference.