Indian sports wrap, July 16: India stays in contention for semifinal spot at FIBA Women’s Asia Cup Division B event

BASKETBALL

FIBA Women’s Asia Cup, Division B: India stays in contention for semifinal spot

India women’s basketball team beat Tahiti 78-55 in its final Group A match of the FIBA Women’s Asia Cup (Division B) in Shenzhen, China, on Wednesday.

Sreekala Rani (15 points) and Sathya Krishnamurthi (11 points) were the top scorers in India’s second win of the tournament.

India (five points) finished second behind Chinese Taipei (six points) in its group. While Chinese Taipei goes directly into the semifinals, India will face third-placed team from Group B on Friday for a place in the last-four stage.

The competition, which concludes on July 20, had eight teams divided equally into two groups with. Winner of the tournament is set to be promoted to Division A.

India has previously won the Division B title in 2017 when it was also the host. However, the team missed out on playing in Division A in 2023 and aims to find its way back.

-Team Sportstar

CHESS

AICF to host 10 FIDE trainer seminars in 2025

The All India Chess Federation (AICF) will conduct 10 FIDE trainer seminars this year and one in January 2026.

The trainer seminars, aiming to empower the Indian chess coaches for training all levels of growing talents, will start from Vijayawada in August and will cover a host of Indian cities before finally culminating in Ranchi in January 2026.

“For the first time ever, we are witnessing a national federation organising 10 FIDE Trainers’ Seminars in a single calendar year — and remarkably, a proposal for the 11th seminar has already been submitted for January,” said Sami Khader, the chair of the TRG (FIDE trainers commission).

“This outstanding initiative by the All India Chess Federation (AICF) is a testament to their unwavering commitment to developing chess trainers and raising the bar for training standards across the region.

“The FIDE Trainers’ Commission (TRG) would like to emphasise that this is not only a record-breaking achievement but also reflection of the strong, ongoing collaboration and mutual trust between AICF and TRG.”

AICF head of operations, A K Verma said the initiative is a part of producing trained coaches, who can provide quality coaching to budding chess players. “We have been trying to provide a lot of training support to our coaches and give them the best available training so that they can use the knowledge to train students in their respective academies, institutes, personal coaching as well as in schools,” said Verma.

“For the past could of years, the AICF has been organising five such seminars and from five to 10 is a big leap forward, we just hope more and more coaches join to reap the benefits of this initiative.”

Verma also added that he hoped schools will also take cognizance of the importance of having properly trained trainers/teachers with a valid training certificate coming from the apex world body.

Top Indian coaches, FST and Dronacharya awardee R B Ramesh, head coach Indian team N Srinath, head coach Indian women team Abhijit Kunte, GM Pravin Thipsay and GM Tejas Bakre have confirmed their participation as coaches for these seminars.

-PTI