Author: G Rajaraman

Olympic and world champion Neeraj Chopra showed his stomach for a fight as he opened his Olympic Games year with a best throw of 88.36cm to finish a close second behind Jakub Vadlejch in the men’s javelin throw in the Doha Diamond League on Friday. Neeraj’s final throw took him to within 2cm of his friendly rival from the Czech Republic. Taking part in his first competition since defending the Asian Games gold medal in Hangzou on October 4 last year, Neeraj gave enough indications that he is in good space as he prepares to make a mark in the…

Nisha Dahiya capped a wonderful day’s work by sealing India’s fifth quota in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games women’s wrestling competition in the World Olympic Games Qualifier in Istanbul, Turkey. The 24-year-old’s three victories in the day ensured that India would have representation in five of the six weight classes in Paris. After a dramatic come-from-behind 7-4 win against the World No. 9 Adela Hanzlickova (Czech Republic) in the 68kg quarterfinal, Nisha did well to hold her nerve and post an 8-4 verdict over Alexandra Nicoleta Anghel (Romania) in the semifinals to be the first to get one of the…

A glowing smile will light up the faces of old-timers, them with receding gray hair and wrinkles on their faces, when you mention The Mile in the athletics context. Monday was the 70th anniversary of Roger Bannister being the first to run a sub-four-minute mile. Quite fittingly, the theme for this year’s World Athletics Day is ‘World Mile Challenge’. The distance was considered the blue riband of athletics but only after Britain’s Bannister, Australia’s John Landy and American Wes Santee sought to be the first to run the distance inside four minutes in the mid-1950s. They were competing on different…

The Indian women and men’s 1600 relays teams booked their tickets to Paris 2024 Olympic Games with creditable efforts in the Olympic Qualifying Round 2 at the World Athletics Relays Challenge in Nassau, Bahamas, on Sunday. Overcoming the disappointment of Saturday’s display, the two teams finished second in their respective races to secure qualification. With two Paris 2024 places available in each of the Olympic Qualifying Round 2 heats, the Indian thinktank chose to skip the Mixed Relay and focus on the women’s and men’s races. While a change in the men’s team was forced because of the hamstring injury…

A reading of two recent orders of National Anti-Doping Appeal Panels (ADAP) would suggest that athletes and their legal counsel have not taken serious cognisance of an earlier order which directed advocates to be careful and serve the interest of sport by assisting panels with true and correct picture of the facts while arguing matters on behalf of the athletes. The Abhinav Mukherji-chaired ADAPs have done well to not let their focus waver. It does not matter how many times an athlete has tested negative. The athlete is answerable for testing positive for a banned substance, the first time. It…

The magic of 2023 was missing in India’s Thomas Cup campaign in Chengdu, China, where the team bowed out of the quarter-final stage. But that should not lead to anyone reaching for the panic button or becoming despondent about India’s chances in the badminton competition in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Let us quickly survey the results from the Uber Cup and Thomas Cup competitions before diving a bit deeper into the impact these results can possibly have on the Indians’ Olympic Games aspirations later this year. In the absence of PV Sindhu and the doubles combination of Ashwini Ponnappa…

There were few sizzling displays on a hot evening in the Indian Grand Prix 1 at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium in Bengaluru on Tuesday. Tamil Nadu’s 23-year-old Praveen Chithravel was the closest to achieving the Paris 2024 qualifying standard when he leapt 17.12m in the men’s triple jump while Shaili Singh enhanced her chances by winning the women’s long jump with a best effort of 6.52m. Chithravel who set the national record in Havana in May last year, went close to meeting the qualifying standard on his fourth attempt, finishing an agonising 10 cm behind the 17.22m mark that would…

Deepika Kumari made the world sit up and take notice by claiming her 30th medal in World Cup Stage competitions with the silver medal in the women’s individual Recurve competition in the Archery World Cup Stage 1 competition in Shanghai, China, on Sunday. More than the medal, her intensity and hunger marked her return to global competition after more than 22 months. In some ways, her comeback story all but overshadowed the Indian men’s recurve team’s dominant 5-1 victory over redoubtable South Korea in the final. The focussed and relentless approach of Dhiraj Bommadevara, Tarundeep Rai and Pravin Jadhav paid…

Some of us sigh poignantly or smile in sheer nostalgia when recalling some conversations with sportsperson that we would take to our graves rather than share even as drawing room gossip, let alone write about. Some sigh more wistfully when we realise that similar conversations may never be possible, given the changing equations between the two constituencies. It seems unimaginable that Sunday Club, a feature on the Indian cricket team’s tour of Pakistan in 1989 that saw players and journalists come together, can ever be recreated. Indeed, for a number of reasons, the days of journalists and sportspersons having heart-to-heart…

Sachin Tendulkar. What does one say that’s new of this man who caused us to reach out and feel the electricity in the atmosphere every time he walked out to bat? What can one add to the odes recited by commentators who waxed eloquent with delight at his incredible cricket? The little big man lorded it over his contemporaries, making capital of his unquestionable gifts – wonderful eye-hand coordination that marked superb shot selection, the ability to score off good balls, and his cricketing intelligence. He flirted with batting records and monopolised them. But the man himself has said he…