It was a great year for tennis ace Sania Mirza and shuttler Saina Nehwal as they ensured that sports other than cricket also had their moments of glory as they geared up for next year’s Olympics in a low-key 2015. It was a year in which Sania was unarguably the biggest success story with her staggering 10 titles on the tour — two of them Grand Slams. Her pairing with Swiss legend Martina Hingis was near invincible through the year and the duo enjoyed a 55:7 win-loss ratio, clinching nine titles together in all. The stupendous success catapulted the duo to world number one spot in women’s doubles. Among the men, India’s ‘ageless wonder’ Leander Paes continued to bring laurels for himself by winning three Grand Slam mixed doubles titles with Hingis being the common factor.
If Sania ruled the tennis court, Saina rediscovered herself on the badminton court, becoming the first Indian woman shuttler to occupy the world number one spot, though for a brief period, before injury derailed her run to an extent. The London Olympic bronze-medallist snared two titles and became the first Indian woman to make the finals of the All England and the World Championships. Away from the glaring spotlight, the shooters were on mark, bagging seven Olympic quota places through various events and they would once again be the country’s prime medal hope in Rio de Janeiro.
In boxing Vijender Singh turned out to be one bright spot amid the gloom, stunning one and all with his decision to turn professional. He has so far been an unstoppable force, winning all his contests via knockouts.
Indian women’s hockey team returned to Olympics after a hiatus of 36 years while the men’s team broke a 33-year-old medal jinx in a major international tournament by winning Hockey World League Final .Hockey had it’s share of controversy off the field as coach Van Ass was sacked unceremoniously just six months into his job following a bitter public spat with Hockey India president Narinder Batra. Experienced midfielder Gurbaj was suspended for nine-months . In HWL Semi-final, India put up an inconsistent show but managed to finish fourth, losing 1-5 to Great Britain in the third-fourth place play-off match. To sum up , it was a mixed year for Indian hockey .
Golfer Anirban Lahiri scripted a success story on the golf course , dominating the headlines with his record-breaking achievements, which included two European tour titles and a fifth place finish at a Major.
In a watershed year which saw him juggle between Asia, US and Europe, Lahiri emerged as the new poster boy of Indian golf clinching the Indian Open and Maybank Malaysian Open, earning a fifth place finish at PGA Championship, qualifying for the prestigious President’s Cup, claiming the Asian Tour Order of Merit and achieving a career-best ranking of World No. 34 among others.
For boxing, it was another year in which the administration of the sport itself remained in a state of paralysis but Vijender’s stunning professional plunge and Shiva Thapa’s World Championships medal lifted the gloom to an extent.
Shiva Thapa became only the third Indian boxer ever to win a medal at the World Championships. It was a brilliant year for the 22-year-old Assamese during which he won a bronze at the Asian Championships before the historic bronze at the World Championships in Doha. The only blip was his failure to book an Olympic berth, for which the World Championships was a qualifying event.
In fact, no Indian boxer could fetch an Olympic quota place in Doha but given the administrative mess, which led to the national federation’s suspension for the second time in three years, it was no small achievement to clinch a medal at the showpiece tournament. In women’s boxing, it was all about the return of L Sarita Devi, the former world champion who had been serving a one-year ban for her emotional outburst at the 2014 Asian Games medal ceremony.The Manipuri came back into the reckoning with some good performances in a training-cum-competition trip to China.
On the football field, the national team plummeted to depths unseen in years but the mediocrity, which has become a norm with the beleaguered outfit, got lost in the shrill din of the spectacle called Indian Super League even as the great Pele grabbed headlines briefly with his week-long sojourn.
Coming to other sports, grounded in obscurity for long, India’s young shooters and exponents of skeet shooting came of age with eye-catching performances at home as well as on foreign shores. The likes of Abhinav Bindra, an Olympic champion and the country’s most talked-about marksman, pistol ace Jitu Rai, Gagan Narang and Apurvi Chandela, among others, helped in swelling the number of quotas earned by India for the coming summer’s quadrennial extravaganza in Rio de Janeiro.
Often considered the weakest discipline for Indian shooting, skeet also took a step forward with Mairaj Ahmed Khan securing the country its maiden Olympic quota in the category.
On the wrestling mat, if a keen tussle for a ticket to Rio between double Olympic medallist Sushil Kumar and rising star Narsingh Yadav grabbed headlines, the youngsters showed the sport’s bench strength in a country that gave the world the much-touted Pro Wrestling League this year.
It was Narsingh sealing an Olympic berth for India that remained the highlight of the year. At the last edition of the quadrennial event in London, Sushil and Narsingh had participated in different weight categories. While Sushil won the silver in 66kg, Narsingh, a veteran of 74kg, bowed out in the first round.
Since then Sushil has climbed up to 74kg division after the FILA, the governing body for international wrestling, re-jigged the weight categories. Sushil had bagged one silver and a gold medal in two tournaments he had participated since moving up the weight division in 2013. But Sushil’s absence from the mat for more than a year has not only seen Narsingh represent India in that weight division but also win medals consistently.
Another Olympic medallist Yogeshwar Dutt continued to prove his mettle in whatever limited tournaments he participated in despite being bogged down by injuries for a major part of the year.
Elsewhere, Pankaj Advani’s name continued to sum up Indian cue sports for yet another year as the long-time posterboy took his world title count to an unprecedented 15.
On the badminton court, Saina was not the only one making hay as K Srikanth also won two titles. Srikanth had emerged as the next big thing last year when he had beaten two-time Olympic champion Lin Dan en route to his China Open triumph and the 22-year-old from Guntur continued his rampaging run in the first half of the season, winning the Swiss Open and India Open in March besides reaching the World No. 3 ranking in June.
In squash, Joshna Chinappa overtook Dipika Pallikal to become India’s highest-ranked player while off the court N Ramachandran’s role as the boss of the world governing body was questioned in what turned out to be a memorable year for Indian and world squash.
Joshna had the most fruitful time among the country’s three torch-bearers including Dipika and Saurav Ghosal. The highlight of her season undoubtedly was getting the better of world number one Raneem El Welily in the opening round of Qatar Classic. A couple of USD 15,000 titles in Melbourne and Mumbai along with a semifinal finish at the USD 50,000 Carol Weymuller Open in New York eventually helped her reach a career-high rank of 13, a jump of nine places since December 2014.
On the flipside, weightlifting brought India a bad name with the highest number of dope cheats this year, threatening the country’s participation in next year’s Olympic Games with the Indian Weightlifting Federation (IWF) staring at a suspension. After a dope-free 2014, it seemed that Indian weightlifters had successfully managed to bury the ghosts of drug menace but it came back to haunt the country this year with highest number of offenders ever to be registered.
If the early part of the year was marred by one of the biggest doping scandals in recent times with as many as 26 lifters provisionally suspended by the IWF after testing positive for banned substances at various domestic meets, the end of 2015 saw two women athletes failing dope tests at an international event. As per the rules, three positive tests at international events in a calendar year result in a one-year ban for the national federation. Thus, one more positive case can destroy India’s chances of participating in next year’s Rio Games.
In track and field, as many as 15, including ace discus thrower Vikas Gowda, qualifying for the Rio Olympics was the highlight of a year of mixed achievements while off the track, young sprinter Dutee Chand won a landmark case against world body of the sport IAAF. Also, the buzz around India’s speculated bid for the 2022 Olympics died after IOC President Thomas Bach — during a visit to the country — ruled out any such possibility.
In overall analysis, Indian sports did not have anything spectacular to celebrate this year but neither was it a completely disappointing one. With all eyes trained on the Olympics next year, 2016 promises to be infinitely more exciting for the country’s sportspersons.
With inputs from PTI