2022 Rewind: The rise of Indian sports as Neeraj Chopra, Mirabai Chanu, lawn bowls team shine

December 19, 2022

2022 was a year full of action for Indian sports lovers. Cricket remained to many the main attraction with the Indian Premier League and T20 World Cup ruling the chart. However, interest in the country’s reigning Olympic Champion Neeraj Chopra never faded with his exploits in the javelin world stretching into the new season. This renewed focus on other sports with Commonwealth Games and various World Championships brought medals in galore.

Neeraj Chopra in elite league

Competing after a gap, Neeraj Chopra started the season with a bang as he threw the javelin as long as 89.30 metre at Parvo Nurmi Games in Finland for an improved national record. A throw bigger than his Tokyo Olympic best (87.58m) still wasn’t good enough for gold as local boy Oliver Helander threw his personal best of 89.83m.

The first gold of the season came soon after as he threw 86.69m for the gold at the Kuortane Games.

Good show at the two competitions prepared him well for the Stockholm Diamond League with the expectations of 90m soaring him. The 24-year-old man from Panipat came mighty close as well with an 89.94m throw. However, not breaching the mark did cost him the spot as his now arch-rival Anderson Peters beat him to the gold with a 90.31m throw.

The rivalry continued at the World Athletics Championships in Oregon in July, where Neeraj threw 88.39m in the qualification round followed by 88.13m in the final to claim a historic silver medal as he ended India’s 19-year-old deficit at the competition. It was also the best-ever finish by an Indian with long jump legend Anju Bobby George winning the bronze medal back in 2003.

Peters, however, was crowned the World Champion with a 90.54m throw. This was also the last time the duo squared off in the year as Chopra missed August’s Commonwealth Games due to a groin injury.

Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem hogged the limelight in Birmingham instead as he defeated Peters with a huge 90.18m throw.

Neeraj did make a comeback from injury and did so in style by becoming the first Indian to win a Diamond League title. He achieved the feat by throwing 89.08m with Peters skipping the event in Lausanne after an accident back home.

The victory also confirmed his historic spot in the Diamond League Grand Final in Zurich. While Peters continued to be absent, Neeraj threw 88.14m to become a Diamond League champion.

Mirabai Chanu returned to World Championships for silver after retaining CWG gold

 

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Another Tokyo Olympic star Mirabai Chanu also was in hot form in 2022 with some major achievements coming her way.

The 28-year-old weightlifter competed in just two major events in the season with clear objectives of claiming the bigger prizes while trying to improve her weakness in snatch.
Starting an overwhelming favourite in Birmingham, the Tokyo silver medallist lifted 201 kg (snatch: 88kg + clean and jerk: 113 kg) to set the new Commonwealth Games record. This was her third medal and a second gold in the quadrennial event.

Commonwealth Games expectedly saw medals in galore for Indian lifters too with the likes of Achinta Sheuli and Jeremy Lalrinnunga bagging gold medals as well. Bindyarani Devi, Sanket Sargar, and Vikash Thakur also joined the party with silver medals to their name while further four settled for bronze.

While the medals at CWG were as per the expectations of national coach Vijay Sharma, he stressed that December’s World Weightlifting Championships in Bogota remained their main target with the tournament also being a 2024 Paris Olympic ranking tournament.
It was the tournament of the season for Mirabai, who faced two of her superior rivals in Chinese duo Jiang Huihua and Hiu Zhihua at the event, and her task was made tougher by a recurring injury.

The latest limited her lifting ability to 200kg (113+87kg) but was enough to take home a silver medal as Olympic champion Zhihua skipped her final lift in clean and jerk to settle for bronze. Huihua, however, showed Mirabai that she has a lot of catch-up to do in snatch as the Chinese lifted 93kg and 206kg in total for the World title.

The Indian came home with an additional back injury, forcing her to go into recovery mode for a month.

Nikhat Zareen becomes new face of Indian boxing

With Mary Kom way past her prime, Indian boxing fans waited with bated breath if Lovlina Borgohain is the true heiress of the six-time World Champion after her bronze in Tokyo a year earlier.

A quarter-final exit at May’s World Boxing Championships took a hit on such expectations before she accused the Boxing Federation of India officials of not allowing her personal coach on the trip. While her coach was eventually allowed to join the team, the 25-year-old boxer crashed out in the quarterfinals.

However, Indian boxing still ended the year with a smile on their face as Nikhat Zareen ultimately proved she is not all talk and no action after her infamous controversies with Mary Kom.

The 26-year-old girl from Nizamabad won her maiden maiden World Championship gold medal, becoming the fifth Indian World Champion and first since Mary Kom’s 2018 triumph.

Zareen carried that form to Birmingham as well for her maiden Commonwealth Games success, therefore affirming her status as the new queen of Indian boxing.

Nitu Ghanghas impressed as well with a gold in the minimum weight category, making her a prospect to watch out for in the year to come.

Among men, Amit Panghal left behind the disappointment of the Tokyo Olympics with a maiden gold medal while successfully changing the colour of his medal from the 2018 Gold Coast.

Rohit Tokas and Mohammad Hussamuddin won bronze.

Wrestlers Bajrang Punia, Vinesh Phogat deliver at big stage

Indian wrestlers had a busy year with Asian Championships, Ranking series, CWG and at last, the World Championships taking them around the globe.

April’s Asian Championships in Ulaanbaatar turned out to be the curtain raiser with Vinesh Phogat missing.

Usually, the toughest continent to compete in, only Tokyo Olympic silver medallist Ravi Dahiya (57kg) among Indians won a gold medal while becoming a triple-time Asian Champion.

Among other elite names, Bajrang Punia (65kg), Deepak Punia (86kg) took home silver. Notably, this was Bajrang’s fourth silver at the event and has been the champion twice in the past.

Among women, Anshu Malik was worth a talk with a silver medal in a tough 57kg field despite conceding her gold from the last year.

Focus turned to August’s Commonwealth Games, which has been a happy hunting group for Indian grapplers as the top wrestling nation.

Expectedly, India won medals in all 12 weight categories, including six gold. The men’s trio of Bajrang, Deepak and Ravi bagged the titles with little discomfort while Naveen Malik (74kg) also won a gold in the Olympic weight category.

Among women, Vinesh finally made a successful return to the international level by claiming 53kg gold with ease. Birmingham also saw Sakshi Malik (62kg) getting back into limelight with a gold as it came after years of struggle since her 2016 Rio Olympics bronze.

Anshu, however, failed to win the most important bout in Birmingham as she lost to two-time champion Odunayo Adekuoroye of Nigeria. The young wrestler also missed the rest of the season with an elbow injury while the rest of the elite pack shifted focus on September’s World Championships in Belgrade

The spread of CWG medals, however, stood for nothing in the Serbian capital with just two bronze medals in return for the Indian wrestlers.

It came through Vinesh and Bajrang, who used their years of international experience to eke out hard-fought medals. While for Vinesh this was second bronze at the apex wrestling tournament, Bajrang counted a historic fourth medal at Worlds, with the biggest being a solitary silver in 2018 Budapest.

WFI, however, faced flak from different quarters for hosting trials for the Belgrade event after CWG while elite women wrestlers, including Vinesh and Sakshi, asked for an exemption.

Something, that was only granted to Bajrang, Deepak and Ravi on explainable grounds.

The year also saw born of a new face in Indian wrestling in Antim Panghal, who became the first Indian to win U20 World Championships gold. Her  triumph came at the back of hotly-contested CWG trials, where she almost stunned Vinesh.

Lakshya Sen comes of age for All England silver

Once seen as the next big thing in Indian badminton, Lakshya Sen was fast becoming a disappointment with the lack of success among big boys. All that changed this year when Sen won his first BWF title in March’s Indian Open and then defeated Olympic Champion Viktor Axelsen in German Open right after to reach another final.

The 22-year-old shuttler then defied all expectations to reach the prestigious All England final in Birmingham the next week. Despite the straight set loss to Axelsen in the final, Sen knew he has it in him and that was evident at the Thomas Cup in May.

Historic Thomas Cup triumph

Being in the shadows of Indian shuttle queens PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal for a decade, Indian men’s badminton had their moment under the sun as they won the historic Thomas Cup dismantling multiple champions Indonesia 3-0 in the final.

The success was built upon the camaraderie of a group of youth and experience, who believed they could go all the way in the tournament. With Sen present, it was the likes of Kidambi Srikanth, HS Prannoy, and doubles pair Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, who ran the show.

Clearing the group stages with little difficulty, India had to slug it out hard with Malaysia and Denmark to reach the finals, where they didn’t allow the Indonesians to breathe.

The group fired together in CWG as well with a silver in a mixed team event while Lakshya and PV Sindhu strike gold as single events favourites.

Satwik-Chirag also took the men’s doubles top honour while Kidambi won an intense bronze medal match.

Sharath Kamal aging like a fine wine

Achanta Sharath Kamal’s spirited performance at 39 against two-time Olympic champion Ma Long in Tokyo was seen by many as a fitting reply for an athlete, who has been the flagbearer of Indian table tennis for close to two decades. However, Sharath Kamal sounded confident when he said he might go on to play in another Olympics given how he played against the eventual champion and one of the greats of the game in a 1-4 loss.

A year later, aged 40, the veteran paddler showed he is still playing top-level table tennis with three gold and a silver at the Commonwealth Games. Sharath’s impressive show included a win over higher-ranked Liam Pitchford for the men’s singles title; something he last achieved 16 years ago in Melbourne.

His mixed doubles gold also saw the advent of unheralded Sreeja Akula, who laid claims as the new queen of Indian table tennis after an abysmal show by her compatriot Manika Batra.

Manika Batra returns as Indian TT queen with historic Asian Cup medal

For Manika, CWG was a mega-disaster, especially after the same event brought her to everyone’s attention four years ago, when she won five medals (including two gold). Seeded second in singles, Manika put on a tepid show to go out in straight games in the quarterfinals to inferior-ranked Zeng Jian. The story was more or less similar in the doubles event despite her teammates’ best efforts to cheer up the Indian TT’s poster girl.

The 27-year-old paddler bounced back in style five months later as she became the first Indian woman to win the individual bronze medal at the Asian Cup.

With the TT powerhouses in China, Japan, and South Korea among others competing in the continent, it was always an uphill task for Manika, whose rank stooped to World No. 44 at the time of entering the tournament in Bangkok.

On her way to the bronze, she defeated World No. 23 Chen Szu Yu of Chinese Taipei in a thrilling quarterfinal to become the first Indian woman to reach the semis. Manika then went down to Tokyo Olympics bronze medallist Mima Ito of Japan, but not before taking two games off her in an 8-11, 11-7, 7-11, 6-11, 11-8, 7-11 loss.

Facing World No. 6 Hina Hayata in the bronze medal match, the Indian put her best foot forward to defeat the Japanese 11-6, 6-11, 11-7, 12-10, 4-11, 11-2.

Avinash Sable ends Kenya’s clean-sweep run at CWG

At a time when the 3000m steeplechase has been struggling for popularity, Avinash Sable has brought the sports-loving nation’s attention to the sport with his enigmatic run that saw him go on multiple national record-breaking sprees with the sole aim to go sub-eight minutes in order to taste Olympic glory.

While the timing remains elusive, the 28-year-old distance runners’ best came at the Commonwealth Games, when he clocked 8:11.20 seconds while beating two-time World Champion and Rio Olympic gold medallist Conseslus Kipruto to the silver medal.

The Indian came mighty close to beating Kenya’s Abraham Kibiwot to the gold with the latter taking the gold by a mere five microseconds.

The result also meant Sable was the first non-Kenyan in the last six editions of the Games to finish on the podium.

Lawn Bowls: Surprise package of the year

Very few fathom a medal for India in lawn bowls, because none ever heard about it. A regular feature at the Games since 1930, the discipline has been dominated by Australia, England, and Wales among others for decades. So names like Rupa Rani Tirkey, Pinki, Nayanmoni Saikia, and Lovely Choubey slipped under the radar when they took the flight to Birmingham with scores of sports stars surrounding them.

The quarter, however, stunned powerhouses New Zealand and South Africa to the gold medal, etching their names in the history book forever.

“This is as big as the Olympics for us since lawn bowls are not part of the Summer Games. We lost the medal by one point four years ago but this time we have made up for that by making history. I hope this effort gives us some recognition,” said Lovely after winning the gold medal.

It did get them recognition as the entire nation, including PM Narendra Modi, congratulated them on their historic win.

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