Category Sports

It isn’t often that India has had a gymnast of repute to boast about. That changed in the last decade with Dipa Karmakar making her mark.

Karmakar rose to prominence when she won bronze at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, becoming the first Indian female gymnast to do so in the history of the games.

She also became India’s first female gymnast to participate at the Olympics when she did so at Rio 2016. She finished a commendable fourth in the Women’s Vault Gymnastics event at Rio. Karmakar is one among five women who have successfully landed the Produnova, considered one of the most difficult vaults in women’s artistic gymnastics.

Speaking of women gymnasts, American Simone Biles went where no one else has as she took her tally to 25 World medals, including 19 World gold medals, at the 2019 World Championships. She won four gold medals and a bronze at Rio 2016 as well and would be eager to add to her tally at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

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For a country of over a billion, getting on the medals tally at the Olympics has been a constant dream every four years.

While there was some success in that regard in the two Olympics that were held on the last decade, there is still a long way to go.

India’s contingent had 83 members for the 2012 London Olympics, the most for India at the games. That number was bettered for the 2016 Rio Olympics, when India’s contingent was 118-members strong.

We had six medals – two silvers and four bronze – to show for our efforts in 2012 and two medals – one silver and one bronze – in 2016. While Vijay Kumar (shooting) and Sushil Kumar (wrestling) won silver medals in 2012, Saina Nehwal (badminton), Mary Kom (boxing), Gagan Narang (shooting) and Yogeshwar Dutt (wrestling) won bronze medals. PV Sindhu’s silver in badminton and Sakshi Malik’s bronze in wrestling completed our haul in 2016.

Having won a bronze in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Sushil Kumar became India’s first multiple individual Olympics medalist when he won his silver in 2012.

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Eliud Kipchoge is a long-distance runner from Kenya. In the first decade of this century, he used to compete in the 5000 m event. He had decent success in it, winning bronze at 2004 Athens Olympics, silver in 2008 Beijing Olympics, apart from his gold and silver at the 2003 and 2007 World Championships.

In 2012, he switched to road running and took to the marathons. Since then, he has won 12 of the 13 marathons that he has competed in, coming second to Kenya’s Wilson Kipsang when he set the world record at the 2013 Berlin marathon.

Kipchoge won the 2016 Rio Olympics gold in the marathon and made the world record his own when he won the 2018 Berlin marathon in a time of 2 hours, 1 minute and 39 seconds.

He has also been involved in experimental runs over marathon distances without standard competition rules. While he clocked 2:00:25 at Monza in 2017 during one such attempt, he broke the mythical two-hour barrier in 2019, when he ran the distance in 1:59:40 at Vienna.

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It isn’t often that we are graced with an athlete like Usain Bolt. One of the greatest sprinters of all time, Bolt was the poster boy of athletics until his retirement in 2017. A showman and an endearing hero, the void left by his departure from the sport is difficult to fill.

Even though his world records in both the 100 m and 200 m sprints came in 2009, Bolt still had plenty to offer in the previous decade as well. He added the 100m, 200 m and 4×100 m gold medals from the 2012 London Olympics and 2016 Rio Olympics to the 100 m and 200 m golds he won at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He is therefore the only sprinter to have won the Olympics 100 m and 200 m titles at three Olympics, and it isn’t going to be an easy feat to replicate.

Apart from the Olympics, Bolt also dominated the scene at the World Championships that are held every two years, winning a record 11 gold medals, including eight in the last decade.

He chose the 2017 World Championships at London as his final event, but alas, it didn’t turn out to be a fairytale ending. He had to be content with a bronze in his last individual 100 m race. He opted out of the 200 m event and pulled up with a hamstring injury while running the anchor leg for Jamaica in the 4×100 m relay final, bringing the curtains down on a glorious career.

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Even though the previous decade wasn’t as good as the one before it for Mary Kom, she was still able to earn a lot of plaudits for women’s boxing in India. Mary was crowned World Amateur Boxing Championship in her weight category on four occasions in the first decade of this century – in 2002, 2005, 2006 and 2008. She added two more World Championships gold medals in the last decade, the first in 2010 and the most recent at New Delhi in 2018. In the process, she became the only woman to be crowned champion for a record six times.

Women’s boxing was included for the first time in Olympics in 2012 and Mary ensured she competed in London. She ended up with a bronze medal, losing out to eventual gold medalist Nicola Adams in the semi-final.

India’s only other boxer who has won a medal at the Olympics, Vijender Singh (won bronze in the 2008 Beijing Games) turned professional in 2015. He’s got an unbeaten 12-0 record with eight knockouts so far and it would be interesting to see how his career pans out.

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Winning a medal for the country at the Olympics is the covered prize many sportsmen dream of. Doing it once is great. Doing it again is even better. Doing it again and again over four different Olympics is almost unthinkable.

American Michael Phelps did the unthinkable by collecting medal after medal over four Olympics – 2004 Athens, 2008 Beijing, 2012 London and 2016 Rio. He finished with 28 medals in his Olympics swimming career – 23 gold, three silver and two bronze. That is more than what most countries have won through their Olympics history!

While the bulk of his victories did come in the first two editions that he participated in, he did win nine gold medals and three silver medals in the last decade. Considered by many as the greatest swimmer of all time, Phelps retired – for a second time – in 2016.

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