Picture Credit: Twitter
The World's biggest chess event, the International Chess Olympiad, is days away from commencing in India's Chennai. The competition is set to be staged at the Poonjeri Village in Mamallapuram, some 50 kilometres from the Tamil Nadu capital. The venue chosen for the competition is itself a UNESCO heritage site and along with that, even Chennai has prepped up to welcome the participants and celebrate the chess festival.
And now days before the start of the event, the official anthem of the 44th International Chess Olympiad has been made live. The anthem has been composed by none other than music maestro AR Rahman.
"#ChessChennai2022 ♟is bringing the world to our Chennai. I am honoured to have had the opportunity of composing the anthem for such a truly international event," Rahman tweeted while sharing the song.
"My best wishes to our Hon'ble CM @mkstalin, @FIDE_chess, @aicfchess and all those working hard to make India ?? proud. #WelcomeAnthem #VanakkamChessChennai," he added.
The music video has been directed by Vignesh Shivan and also features Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin, and legendary India chess grandmaster Vishwanathan Anand other than Rahman himself. The video has already gone viral having reached over 200,000 views.
For the unversed, the Chess Olympiad is a biennial event and witnesses teams from all over the world compete for the title over two weeks. This is the second major chess event that India is hosting after the World Championship match between Viswanathan Anand and Magnus Carlsen back in 2013.