40 Fun Facts About Indian Sports

Which champion wrestler who beat Lou Thesz in 1968 played Hanuman in Ramanand Sagar's TV Ramayan?

Dara Singh. The television role was a reprise: he had first played the monkey god in the 1976 film Bajrangbali, eight years after taking the world title from Thesz.

Which Pakistani president told Milkha Singh 'you didn't run today, you flew', coining the name Flying Sikh?

Ayub Khan. Milkha had at first refused to race in Pakistan, where his parents were killed during Partition, and went only after Prime Minister Nehru persuaded him.

Ajay Devgn plays which coach in Maidaan, a 2024 biopic about India's 1962 Asian Games football gold?

Syed Abdul Rahim. He died of cancer the following June, and Indian football faded so quickly afterwards that one of his players said he 'took Indian football to the grave'.

Dangal dramatised which wrestler's 2010 Commonwealth gold in Delhi, India's first by a woman in the sport?

Geeta Phogat. Her younger sister Babita, the film's other daughter, won a silver of her own in a lighter weight class at the same Delhi Games.

Whose name did India's highest sports award carry before it was renamed after Dhyan Chand in 2021?

Rajiv Gandhi's name came off the Khel Ratna in August 2021, the day after India's men won their first Olympic hockey medal since 1980.

Appu, the mascot of the 1982 Asian Games in Delhi, was modelled on a real young animal of which species?

Elephant. Appu proved so popular that Appu Ghar, India's first amusement park, took his name when it opened in Delhi in 1984.

Which Indian Davis Cup star, a finalist in 1974 and 1987, played an MI6 agent in the Bond film Octopussy?

Vijay Amritraj never got to play that 1974 final: India refused to travel to apartheid South Africa and gave up the Davis Cup rather than play.

Which country hosted the 1950 FIFA World Cup, which India qualified for but then withdrew from?

Brazil. India got in only because its Asian rivals pulled out, then stayed home too; captain Sailen Manna denied the legend that a ban on playing barefoot was the reason.

Which city's Pentangular cricket tournament, scrapped in 1946, fielded teams of Europeans, Parsis, Hindus, Muslims and The Rest?

Bombay. It began as the Parsis against the Europeans and added sides until a fifth, The Rest, joined in 1937; critics wanted teams drawn by region instead, to end its religious divisions.

Which Bollywood actor is the founding owner of the Jaipur Pink Panthers, winners of the first Pro Kabaddi League season in 2014?

Abhishek Bachchan's Panthers beat U Mumba in that first final, and the debut season's television audience was second in India only to the IPL's.

Which goalkeeper, blamed for India's 1–7 loss to Pakistan in 1982, later trained the cast of Shah Rukh Khan's hockey film?

Mir Ranjan Negi trained the cast of Chak De! India, years after a comeback of his own: in 1998 he rejoined the national side as goalkeeping coach and India won Asian Games gold.

Kartik Aaryan's film Chandu Champion tells the story of which swimmer, India's first Paralympic gold medallist?

Murlikant Petkar. Shot and paralysed in the 1965 war with Pakistan, the army boxer took up swimming and won the 50 m freestyle at Heidelberg seven years later.

Which runner, the Payyoli Express, missed 1984 Olympic 400 m hurdles bronze by a hundredth of a second?

P. T. Usha ran 55.42 seconds, a hundredth behind the bronze medallist, then answered a year later with five gold medals at the Asian Championships in Jakarta.

Which weightlifter won India's first Olympic medal by a woman, a bronze in the 69 kg class at Sydney 2000?

Karnam Malleswari finished just 2.5 kg behind the two lifters ahead of her, after missing a final clean and jerk at 137.5 kg that would have won her the gold.

Which bantamweight wrestler won independent India's first individual Olympic medal, a bronze at Helsinki in 1952?

K. D. Jadhav's bronze at Helsinki came four years after the Maharaja of Kolhapur funded his first Games trip, to London in 1948.

Which middleweight became India's first Olympic boxing medallist, with a shared bronze at Beijing in 2008?

Vijender Singh's bronze was shared because Olympic boxing stages no third-place bout: both beaten semi-finalists go home with a medal.

Which wrestler won 58 kg bronze at Rio 2016, the first Olympic wrestling medal by an Indian woman?

Sakshi Malik trailed 0–5 in the bronze-medal bout before storming back to beat Kyrgyzstan's Aisuluu Tynybekova 8–5.

Which 2017 world champion at 48 kg won India's weightlifting silver in the 49 kg class at Tokyo 2020?

Mirabai Chanu's silver came five years after a disastrous Rio Games, where she failed all three clean and jerk attempts and left without a total.

Who was the first recipient of the Khel Ratna, India's highest sporting honour, for the 1991–92 season?

Viswanathan Anand, India's first grandmaster, was only 22 when the award went to a chess player ahead of any cricketer, eight years before his first world title.

Which Indian honour for sports coaches, instituted in 1985, is named after a figure from the Mahabharata?

Dronacharya Award. In the epic, Drona is the teacher of the royal princes, and the athletes' Arjuna Award is named for his pupil, the great archer.

Which country did India beat in the 2004, 2007 and 2016 Kabaddi World Cup finals, all staged in India?

Iran lost all three finals, then turned the tables at the 2018 Asian Games, where it took the gold and ended India's run of seven straight men's titles.

Which Indian football competition, first played at Shimla in 1888, is the oldest existing club tournament in Asia?

The Durand Cup began as a contest for army regiments, founded by Mortimer Durand, the Raj diplomat who also drew the Durand Line between Afghanistan and what is now Pakistan.

Which former world No. 1 partnered Sania Mirza to three straight Grand Slam doubles titles in 2015 and 2016?

Martina Hingis. She had already retired twice before returning in 2013 as a doubles player, and the Wimbledon title with Mirza was her first there in 17 years.

Dipa Karmakar finished fourth at Rio 2016 with which vault, so risky it is nicknamed the vault of death?

Produnova. Asked if she would try it, Simone Biles reportedly said 'I'm not trying to die'; Karmakar performed it in the Rio final and missed the bronze by 0.15 points.

Which north-eastern state, where polo is played as sagol kangjei, is credited as the birthplace of the modern sport?

Manipur. British tea planters and officers learnt the game from Manipuri players in the 1850s, the Calcutta Polo Club followed in 1862, and army regiments returning home took the sport to England.

Which driver became India's first in Formula One, making his debut for Jordan at the 2005 Australian Grand Prix?

Narain Karthikeyan scored his only points later that year, finishing fourth at a United States Grand Prix that just six cars started after a row over tyre safety.

Which Kolkata club's barefoot side beat the East Yorkshire Regiment in 1911, the first native IFA Shield winners?

Mohun Bagan came from a goal down to win 2–1, and the victory over a British regiment became a landmark moment in India's push for independence.

In which city did Neeraj Chopra throw 88.17 m to win India's first World Athletics Championships gold in 2023?

Budapest. Chopra's 88.17 m held off Pakistan's Arshad Nadeem by 35 centimetres, so India and Pakistan took the top two steps of the podium.

In which Swiss city did P. V. Sindhu win India's first badminton World Championships gold in 2019, beating Nozomi Okuhara?

Basel. Sindhu won 21–7, 21–7, two years after losing a 110-minute world final to the same Okuhara.

Which Indian won the country's first Grand Slam title, the 1997 French Open mixed doubles, two years before Leander Paes won his?

Mahesh Bhupathi won it with Japan's Rika Hiraki, and when Paes won his first major, the 1999 French Open doubles, Bhupathi was his partner.

Which 2001 All England champion coached Saina Nehwal and P. V. Sindhu to Olympic medals at his Hyderabad academy?

Pullela Gopichand reportedly mortgaged his family home to finish building the academy when the donations he had raised fell short.

Which city, home of 2024 world chess champion D Gukesh, hosted the 2022 Chess Olympiad after it was moved from Russia?

Chennai took the Olympiad after FIDE stripped Moscow of it following the invasion of Ukraine, and Gukesh, born in the city in 2006, became the youngest undisputed world champion in 2024.

Which Indian teenager reached the 2023 FIDE World Cup final in Baku, losing to Magnus Carlsen in rapid tiebreaks?

R Praggnanandhaa, then 18, beat third seed Fabiano Caruana in tie-breaks in the semi-final to become the youngest finalist in the event's history.

Which javelin thrower, who lost his left hand to a live cable aged eight, won Paralympic golds in 2004 and 2016?

Devendra Jhajharia waited twelve years between golds because his javelin class was left off the programme at both the 2008 and 2012 Games.

Which athlete became the first Indian woman to win Paralympic gold, in Tokyo, then retained her title in Paris?

Avani Lekhara was left paralysed by a car accident at the age of 11 and took up shooting after reading Olympic champion Abhinav Bindra's autobiography.

Which Indian became the oldest first-time doubles world No. 1, at 43, after the 2024 Australian Open?

Rohan Bopanna won his first men's doubles major there, fourteen years after losing his first Grand Slam final with Pakistan's Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi as the 'IndoPak Express'.

Which Kolkata stadium hosted the final of the 2017 FIFA U-17 World Cup?

Salt Lake Stadium saw England come from two goals down to beat Spain 5–2 in that final; nine years earlier it staged Oliver Kahn's farewell match for Bayern Munich.

Boxer Mary Kom was nominated in 2016 to which legislative body?

Rajya Sabha. Mary Kom took her seat as a nominated member and, while still a sitting MP, won a record sixth world title in 2018.

Which undefeated wrestling champion of British India had a training routine that Bruce Lee studied and adopted?

The Great Gama was only ten when he was named winner of an endurance contest against more than 400 wrestlers, and in 1922 the Prince of Wales presented him with a silver mace.

Which younger brother of Dhyan Chand won Olympic hockey golds in 1932 and 1936 and has a Gwalior stadium in his name?

Roop Singh's stadium was built for hockey but turned to cricket, and it was there in 2010 that Sachin Tendulkar hit the first double century in men's one-day internationals.