Grandmaster and reigning Commonwealth champion Abhijeet Gupta has been nominated for the prestigious Arjuna award while his long time trainer Vishal Sareen has been picked by All India Chess Federation (AICF) as a nominee for this year's Dronacharya award.
Gupta recently won a gold medal in the Commonwealth Championship adding to his long haul of medals for the country including a bronze in the Asian continental championship.
The 23-year-old had also won an individual silver in the Chess Olympiad for his brilliant individual performance.
Gupta is also the only Indian after world champion Viswanathan Anand and P Harikrishna to have won the World Junior Chess Championship.
He was a member of the Indian team that won silver medal in the Asian team chess championship in China last year.
International Master Vishal Sareen was chosen for the Dronacharya due to the excellent results achieved by his students.
Tania Sachdev and Parimarjan Negi were the last two Arjuna awardees in Chess and Sareen had trained both of them.
Abhijeet Gupta has been his protege for more than seven years now along with young Grandmasters like Sahaj Grover and Akshayraj Kore.
"The AICF had looked at the best possible candidates both for Arjuna and Dronacharya awards and both Gupta and Sareen are the best choices that we have currently," CEO, AICF Bharat Singh Chauhan said in a release.
