Top 5 Indian Athletes

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Top 5 Indian Athletes

Several sports are popular in India. The main sports played in India include cricket, badminton, chess and football.

The cultural diversity of the Indian people and tribes is reflected in a variety of sports. Some of the sports were introduced by the colonial British.

The most popular of these games is without a doubt, the cricket that is played in most regions of the country.

India is one of the few countries that has been able to maintain their traditional sports like Gilli-danda, kabaddi, pehlwani and kho kho.

One fascinating fact is that India is home to some of the oldest forms of martial arts such as musti yuddha, kalerippayattu, silambam and marma adi.

Another popular traditional board game that is played in India is the chaturanga which is believed to be similar to chess.

There are several chess grandmasters in India. Let us now look at the top 5 athletes in different disciplines.

1. Lalita Babar

The first on the list is Lalita Babar who is an Indian long-distance runner. She comes from a small village in Satara, Maharashtra region.

She has specialized in the 00-metres steeplechase race. Lalita is presently India’s national record holder and the reigning Asian champion in the 300-metre steeplechase race.

In 2015, Lalita was named as the Sports Person of the Year in the India Sports. She received the award from the Federation of Indian chambers of commerce and industry together with the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports of India.

She again got honoured with another award in 2016, she received the much-coveted Arjuna Award from the Indian president as gratitude to her contribution in the field of athletics.

Back in 2014, Lalita became the hat-trick winner of the Mumbai marathon. In the same year, she opted to try her luck in the 3000 metres steeplechase determined to win a medal in the Asian Games and Commonwealth Games.

During that event, she won the bronze medal by clocking 9:35.37 in the final race. She also broke the national record held by Sudha Singh.

In the 2016 Federation Cup National Athletics Championships held in New Delhi, Lalita outdid her previous record with a new time of 9:27.09.

In the IAAF Olympics that happened in Rio de Janeiro, she had an even better time of 9:19.76 in her heat and qualified for the finals.

She went on to be the first Indian athlete in 32 years to enter the finals in any track events. She came in 10^th with a time of 9:22.74.

2. Sachin Tendulkar

By Privatemusings – wikimedia

Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar is a former international cricketer and a former captain of the Indian national team.

Sachin is considered to be one extraordinaire batsman in the history of cricket. He has the highest scores on runs in international cricket.

He is also regarded as the most complete batsman of his time. He is also the most successful run maker and without a doubt the biggest cricket icon in the game.

Sachin’s batting principle is based on perfect balance, the economy of movement, precision in stroke-making and intangible skill only possessed by prodigies.

He presently holds the record for most hundreds in Tests and One Day International which he scored on his 79^th ODI match.

He is the most enthusiastic player in cricket and maintained the same energy and passion until the day he retired from playing professionally.

When Sachin was 36-years-old, he broke a 40-year-old barrier by scoring the first double-century in one-day cricket.

In 2012, Sachin became the first player to score 100 international centuries just a month shy of his 39^th birthday. Cricket sports commentators and analysts believe that his record could be a mark that stays forever.

The rest of that season was quite a disappointing 18 months in international cricket for Sachin. He announced his retirement in 2013.

3. Viswanathan Anand

By Wolfgang Jekel – Wikimedia

Viswanathan Anand is India’s chess grandmaster and a former world chess champion. He was the first grandmaster from India in 1988.

He grew up in Tamil Nadu and became passionate about chess at a very early age.

He took part in the national sub-junior chess championship when he was 14-years-old.

Anand is one of the few chess players to beat the Elo rating of 2,800 which he achieved in 2006. He is also a 5-time world chess champion.

He is such a genius that while playing, he could almost tell the next move of his opponent.

He remains to be the only player who has won the World chess championships in different set-ups of the sport such as tournaments, match, rapid and knockout chess.

Anand defeated his rival Alexei Shirov in a six-match game to win the 2000 FIDE world chess championship, he held this title until 2002.

In the 2007 championship, Anand proved to be the unbeaten champion. In 2008 he defeated Vladimir Kramnik to defend his previous title.

He went on to defeat Veselin Topalov in 2010 and Boris Gelfand in 2012.

Anand lost his title to his opponent Magnus Carlsen twice, in 2013 and 2014. He, however, won the 2014 candidates’ tournament.

Among his awards include the World Blitz cup in 2000.

4. Hima Das

The President, Shri Ram Nath Kovind presenting the Arjuna Award, 2018 to Ms. Hima Das for Athletics, in a glittering ceremony, at Rashtrapati Bhavan, in in New Delhi on September 25, 2018.

Hima Das was nicknamed the Dhing Express after her win in the U-20 IAAF world championship. She is specialized in sprinting and comes from Assam state.

She got interested in participating in various sports since childhood. She played football in her neighbourhood.  She was convinced by a coach to pursue athletics after seeing her potential in the sport.

She is the current record holder of the Indian national 400-metres with a personal best time of 50.79 clocked in the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Das won 5 back-to-back gold medals in a month in the Czech Republic in 2019.

Her speciality in the race includes the women’s 200-metre, 400-meter, and 4 by 400-metre mixed relays.

In the 2018 Commonwealth games in Gold Coast, Queensland in Australia, Das finished in the 6^th place.

Das signed an endorsement deal with Adidas in 2018 and was awarded the prestigious Arjuna Award by the President of India that same year.

There is a tigress cub named in her honour in Bannerghatta Biological Park.

5. Mary Kom

By Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Government of India – Wikimedia

The final athlete on our list is Mary Kom. She is an Olympic boxer and a current Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha.

Mary became the only woman to win the World Amateur Boxing Championship 6-times. She is also the only woman who has won a medal in all the first seven world championships.

She is also the only boxer to ever win 8 world championship medals. She got nicknamed Magnificent Mary.

Mary was the only Indian woman boxer that qualifies for the 2012 Summer Olympics and competed in the flyweight category, she won the bronze medal.

She also got ranked as number 1 for the AIBA world women’s ranking in the light flyweight category.

In 2014, she was the first Indian female boxer to win the gold medal in the Asian Games in South Korea.

Mary competed in the Asian Amateur Boxing Championship 6-times, a record only she holds.

She is a mother of three, mentors the youth by giving them free boxing lessons and is member of parliament in India’s Upper House.