Sachini Ranasinghe was the women’s champion at the recently held Sri Lanka Women Chess Grand Prix 2020. On Friday she recorded back to back wins at the FIDE Online Olympiad.

by Reemus Fernando

Sri Lanka Women Chess Grand Prix 2020 champion Sachini Ranasinghe scored back to back victories as her team competing in Pool ‘B’ of Division III encountered fluctuating fortunes at the FIDE Online Olympiad on Friday.

The team accumulated 13 points on day one to be placed fourth in the points table of the ten team pool.

Sri Lanka beat Chinese Taipei in the first round 4 ½ to 1 ½ and conceded a defeat in the second round to Scotland before receiving a walkover from Nigeria.

Ranasinghe earned the team two points through her victories against Scotland’s Alice Lampard (in round 2) and Chi Chen of Chinese Taipei (round 1).

Ranasinghe, Ravindu Liyanage, Susal de Silva and Tharushi Niklesha got the country off to a winning start in round one beating their counterparts from Chinese Taipei.

Liyanage beat Yeh Yang Liu, de Silva edged out Ting-Hao Wang and Niklesha out did Sophie Yi-Hsuan.

FIDE master Harshana Thilakaratne drew with International Master Song Raymond in a close contest in that round to earn half a point.

In round two Sri Lanka were drawn against a strong team from Scotland.

FIDE master Isuru Alahakoon drew with Alan Tate and Ranasinghe’s back to back wins were followed up by Gihansa Jayaweera who beat Sarah Smith in round two.

Sri Lanka received a walk over in round three after Nigeria failed to make available their players.

Portugal, Angola, Botswana, United Arab Emirates and Tajikistan are the other countries drawn in Pool ‘B’ of Division III.

Sri Lanka will continue to compete against their pool ‘B’ counterparts on Saturday and Sunday.

The online facilities for the Sri Lanka team is provided by Polymath College International, Navinna from where they log in to the competition.