Last fortnight, even as Chandrayaan-3’s successful landing near the lunar south pole rightfully grabbed all the limelight, a group of young Indian men and women were quietly making their mark in sporting arenas across the world. If Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa was the toast of the chess world for his finals appearance against the five-time World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen, in Hungary at the World Athletics Championship the men's 4X400 meters relay team set the track ablaze with a new Asian record running the mighty US contingent close in the semifinals. At the same event, Parul Chaudhary achieved a new personal best timing while entering the steeplechase final and qualifying for next year’s Paris Olympics. The icing on the cake came as Neeraj Chopra, already an Olympic gold medalist in the javelin event, added the world title to his glittering collection. At the same time, Indian badminton star, H.S. Prannoy, won a bronze at the BWF Championship beating two-time World Champion and reigning Olympic Champion Viktor Axelsen in the quarterfinals.
The achievements of these young men and women mark the coming of age of India as a sporting nation. Significantly, the wins have been evenly spread across a whole host of sports. Just in the last few months, the Indian women's compound team of Jyothi Surekha Vennam, Aditi Swami and Parneet Kaur won the gold medal at the 2023 Berlin World Archery Championships, while in hockey, the Indian boys won the Men's Junior Asia Cup 2023 even as the senior squad emerged winners in the Asian Champions Trophy. In golf, Shubhankar Sharma posted the best result ever by an Indian golfer at the Open in Merseyside, England, when he finished in a tied-eighth position, just five strokes behind the leaders. And when three Indian women golfers - Aditi Ashok, Diksha Dagar and Tvesa Malik - teed off at the same major, the 2020 Women’s Open at Royal Troon, they made history.
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While hockey, archery, badminton and chess have a rich tradition in the country even though tournament wins have been few, it is the success in events like track and field, where barring the individual exploits of a Milkha Singh and P.T. Usha, India has been a rank underperformer, as well as in golf, never a popular sport in the country, which is the most heartening.
These performances didn't come overnight, nor in most cases, were they a surprise. They capped a sustained multi-year improvement in Indian sport that first came to the fore at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 where India bagged 7 medals including Chopra’s gold, along with silver and bronze medals in wrestling, boxing, badminton and hockey. It was India’s best medal haul ever at the Olympics.
Nor is the success now restricted to one or two outstanding achievers. In javelin, for instance, two other Indians, Manu D.P. and Kishore Jena, qualified for the finals where Chopra emerged winner. They eventually finished fifth and sixth, respectively, the first time in history that three Indians were competing at a World Championships final together. In badminton, too, for years there were lone champions like Prakash Padukone, Pullela Gopichand and then Saina Nehwal and P.V. Sindhu. Now there’s a full brigade of experienced pros along with young players ready to take over from these legends. This has lent heft to India’s performance in team events as in 2022 when the men's badminton team lifted the Thomas Cup title for the first time ever with a resounding victory over defending champions Indonesia in the final in Bangkok.
In the process, several pre-conceived notions have been squashed, including the one about Indians not being strong and muscular enough to compete with Western nations on the track. But the most significant myth that has been demolished, hopefully forever, is that girls can’t play. One Mary Kom single-handedly showed the way and Saina Nehwal and Sania Mirza and P.V. Sindhu have just raced away with the baton. Women can’t lift, said some. Along came weightlifter Mirabai Chanu to show them how, winning the silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics. They can’t fight, can they? Ask Lovlina Borgohain who won a bronze in Tokyo. And in a delicious bit of irony, the Indian women’s cricket team has already been more successful in multi-country events like the World Cup over the last 10 years than their men’s counterpart.
It is a renaissance that has brought joy to millions as India finds its place on the sporting high table of the world.
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