Indian men outclassed Canada with a crushing 3.5-0.5 victory in the 11th round of 36th Chess Olympiad at Gran Casino here. Aided by the big victory, India jumped to joint fifth spot on 27.5 along with America and there is a realistic chance to be among medals for them. Just three rounds remain in the biggest chess event.World rapid champion Viswanathan Anand boosted the confidence of a rather struggling Indian team after 10th round loss against Cuba and defeated Pascal Charbonneau quite easily on the top board after Surya Shekhar Ganguly had already given the team an early lead.On the second board, Krishnan Sasikiran was held to a draw by Mark Bluvshtein but Sandipan Chanda gave India a much-needed victory on the fourth board against Yan Teplitsky after a hard fought game.Meanwhile at the real top, the equation did not change much as Ukraine strengthened its position with a big 3-1 victory over Cuba and took their tally to 32 points out of a possible 44.Russia remained on the second spot after beating United States 2.5-1.5 and they now trail the leaders by 2.5 points. Armenia kept its third position intact with an easy 2.5-1.5 victory over Switzerland and moved to 29 points while Israel stands sole fourth on 28 after comprehensively beating Azerbaijan 3-1. Indian eves suffered a disappointing 0.5-2.5 loss against Georgia and were thrown almost out of medal contention after the 11th round. The Indian women were hit badly by enterprising Georgians as former world champion Maia Chiburdanidze capitalised on a rare blunder by Koneru Humpy and won a long drawn encounter on the top board while Nana Dzagnidze outplayed S Vijayalakshmi on the second after Dronavalli Harika had done her bit on the last board by holding higher-rated Lela Javakhishvili. The Chinese women inched closer to the title with an easy 1.5-1.5 draw with Hungary with all boards signing peace. United States and Hungary are next in line on 21.5 while France and England are now half a point adrift of them.
