Cricket no threat to other sports: Anand

Guwahati, Jun 5 (UNI) World champion Viswanathan Anand today downplayed the popularity of cricket in the country, maintaining that other sports are not threatened by it.

He said, ''Cricket's popularity cannot undermine other sports. All other sports, including chess, will find its own space.'' The grand master maintained that he would continue to lead on the chessboard for more years to come.

With an air of confidence he asserted,''I am not letting anyone take away the top position from me for some more years and I will continue playing my best.'' Anand maintained that chess was a beneficial game, particularly for school students, as it helped in developing accuracy, memory and application.

The focus should be more on schools, so that students could be derive more benefits from the game, Anand opined.

He observed that Asom had tremendous potential of producing world-class chess players, especially mentioning the names of Uttam Saikia and Tapan Chetia, whom he had seen play the 'mind game'.

Uttam had been the national champion in the junior category and Tapan, was the runner's up in senior category in national level chess competition held at Chennai recently.

Lauding the state government for successfully hosting the 33rd National Games in February, Mr Anand said, ''Asomese are great sports-lovers here and it springs from their enthusiam for all kinds of sports, as witnessed during the National Games.

The chess grandmaster was in the city to launch the fourth phase of NIIT MindChampions' Academy in 200 additional schools of the state, under the Rajiv Gandhi Computer Literacy Programme.

This is his second visit to the state. Anand had come here in 2005 to launch the first phase of the MindChampion Academy.

UNI