8 ms·
This is news because it's a 16-year-old Indian kid. India has a huge Anglophone online audience that loves to boost news of Indian accomplishments, particularly
by spoonjim 5y ago
This is news because it's a 16-year-old Indian kid. India has a huge Anglophone online audience that loves to boost news of Indian accomplishments, particularly those of people achieving something beyond their years.
- whatshisface 5y agoAny 16-year-old kid would make the news for doing this.
- spoonjim 5y agoYes but this news would not get this much exposure if it was a Russian kid. They simply don't have the same online footprint.
- rococode 5y agoCase in point: Last year, 18-year-old Andrey Esipenko beat Carlsen in classical time controls. It was Carlsen's first classical loss against a teenager in 10 years, and his first loss to a sub-2700 player in 5 years. It was also just 3 months after Carlsen's record-breaking streak of 125 classical games with no losses came to an end. There was a big buzz in the chess world at the time, but it was hardly front-page material for mainstream media. That said, of course, newsworthiness is not a competition - so congrats to both youngsters for their awesome achievements. The upcoming chess generation is looking promising! (I expect we'll see similar headlines for Alireza Firouzja someday soon)
- dmurray 5y agoFirouzja has dozens of wins against Carlsen already. I'm only surprised that Pragg didn't.
- rishikeshs 5y agoAs an Indian, I couldn't agree more.
- ngc248 5y agoA prodigious kid beating the World number one would be news everywhere
- 2143 5y agoThis would be news even if you, spoonjim, beat Carlsen :D
- dartharva 5y agoIt's sports accomplishments in general. Like in most developing countries, sports has very low priority in the Indian society, so it becomes big news when an Indian excels in any sport because it's assumed he/she had very little institutional support.