Will 2015’s Pain be 2016’s Gain for Indian Sports?

2015 was eventful to say the least in the Indian sports arena. With the daughters of the nation (Sania and Saina) bringing glory, the son of the soil too did fairly well. Let us take a quick look at the lastest sports news during the last year and how are we poised to take things forward in 2016, when the greatest event of the world, The Olympics is scheduled.

Tennis queen Sania Mirza’s greatest feat this year was the 10 titles including the 2 grand slams that she had won. Her pairing with Swiss tennis ace, Martina Hingis was immensely successful as the pair clinched a 55:7 win to loss ratio.

Indian hockey team 04

Taking the Tennis glory further was the ‘ageless wonder’ Leander Paes, who claimed 3 grand slam titles. Co-incidentally, he too paired up with Martina! The swiss prodigy proved to be quite a lucky charm for Indian tennis.

Shuttler, Saina Nehwal too rose to the pinnacle and clenched the number one spot, though for a short while only. She lost her run owing to her injury. The Desi shooters too were bang on target as seven of them have booked a ticked for the Rio Olympics this year! The country will tie their hopes for medals on these talented shooters. The dashing boxer Vijender Singh too gave a power pack performance and continued his invincible run by knocking out his contestants. He registered his third straight win in pro boxing by knocking out Hyuseinov in the second round. Earlier he also registered wins against Dean Gillen and Sonny Whiting.

For hockey, the year was a mixed bag. Both the women’s and men’s team tasted success after a long haul. The Indian women’s hockey team qualified for the 2016 Rio Olympics after a gap of 36 years! The team now joins nine other teams that have already qualified for the big event. India last qualified for the Olympics way back in 1980 Moscow games.
However, there was an ugly spat between coach Van Ass and Hockey India President Narinder Batra, that led to an abrupt termination of contract for the coach. Mid-fielder gurbaj was also suspended for nine months.

Gold too had tasted success with Anirban Lahiri breaking records by winning a couple of European tour titles and a 5th position finish at a major.

On the fooball front, it wasn’t a happy scenario with the national team plunging to depths. However, the sport clinched its share of attention, thanks to the Indian Super League. The tournament was graced by the great Pele as he made a week-long stay here.

The wrestling rink saw an intense tussle between Olympic medalist Sushil kumar and Nar Singh Yadav. Overall the fight showed the world, India’s bench strength in wrestling, which was quite promising. Narsingh clinched a spot to the Olympics.

The year was quite eventful for the squash fraternity. According to the latest sports updates Joshna Chinnapa rose to the highest ranked squash player by surpassing Dipika Pallikal. What made the year for squash a successful one was Joshna’s successful stint by getting the better of world number one Raneem El Welily at the Qatar Classic. She ended at the 13th rank jumping nine places ahead from where she ended in Dec 2014.

These were the sports update news from 2015 and we hope Indian sport performs better this year and clinches more medals at Rio de Janeiro.