By Qaiser Mohammad Ali, IANS
New Delhi : Here are 60 greatest moments in Indian sports since Aug 15, 1947, selected for IANS by a panel that included eminent sportspersons Milkha Singh and P.T. Usha (athletics), Prakash Padukone and Damyanti Tambay (badminton), Ajit Pal Singh and M.K. Kaushik (hockey), Pankaj Advani (billiards and snooker), Sanjeeva Singh (archery) and Jitenderjit Singh Ahluwalia (equestrian).
ADVENTURE SPORTS
1 Tenzing Norgay: He was one of the two men to first climb the 8,848-metre tall Mount Everest in May 29, 1953, the other being Edmund Hillary of New Zealand.
2 Bachendri Pal: She was the first Indian woman to climb Mount Everest May 23, 1984.
ARCHERY
3 Jayanta Talukdar-Dola Banerjee: Talykdar won the recurve gold at the 2006 World Cup in Croatia, while Dola also bagged the recurve gold at the 2006 World Cup in Dover, England.
ATHLETICS
4 Milkha Singh: He came very close to winning an Olympic medal with a timing of 45.6 seconds in 400 metres, but finished fourth in Rome in 1960. He, however, broke the world record, as did the first ahead of him.
5 Sriram Singh: He finished a creditable seventh in 800m with a time of 1:45.77 sec at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, but broke the Asian record that stood for 17 years and is still an Indian record.
6 Gurbachan Singh Randhawa: He finished fifth in 110m hurdles in 14 sec at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.
7 P.T. Usha: At the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, she became the first Indian woman to enter the final of an athletics event but missed the 400m hurdles bronze by 1/100th of a second. She finished fourth in 55.42 sec.
8 Anju Bobby George: She cleared 6.70m to win the long jump bronze at the 2003 Paris World Championship. It was the first medal won by an Indian at a global athletics competition.
BOXING
9 Padam Bahadur Mall: The legendary boxer won the gold in the lightweight category at the 1962 Asian Games.
10 Hawa Singh: This heavyweight boxer won two successive gold medals at the 1966 and 1970 Asian Games, both in Bangkok.
11 Mary Kom: She performed an unprecedented golden hat trick at the World Championships, winning the 46kg title in Turkey in 2004, in Russia in 2005 and in Delhi in 2006.
BADMINTON
12 Prakash Padukone: He was first Indian to win the All-England Championship, beating Liem Swie King of Indonesia in the final in London in 1980. He also won the first ever World Cup in 1981.
13 Gopi Chand Pullela: He emulated Padukone by winning the 2001 All-England title.
BODYBUILDING:
14 Prem Chand Degra: He clinched the Mr. Universe title in the middleweight class in Brisbane in 1988.
CARROM
15 Anthony Maria Irudayam: He won singles, doubles (partnering R. Arokiaraj) and the team titles at the 1st World Championship in Delhi in 1991.
CHESS
16 Viswanathan Anand: He made history by winning the World Championship in Tehran in 2000. The previous year he won the 1st World Cup in China.
17 Koneru Humpy: In 2001, she became the first Indian to win the World Junior Girls Championship in Athens.
CRICKET
18 World Cup 1983: Turning the 66-1 odds upside down, Kapil Dev’s India stunned the West Indies by 43 runs in the final to win their only World Cup in London. (India also reached the final in 2003, but lost to Australia in Johannesburg.)
19 World Championship of Cricket 1985: Sunil Gavaskar’s side defeated Pakistan by eight wickets in the final to wrest the title in Melbourne. Ravi Shastri won the Champions of Champions award.
20 Sunil Gavaskar’s 10,000 runs: The redoubtable opener, having batted against some of the fearsome fast bowlers without a helmet, became the first batsman to score 10,000 runs in Test cricket in 1987.
21 Virender Sehwag: He cracked 309 against Pakistan in Multan March 29, 2004, to become the first Indian to score an historic triple century.
22 Under-19 World Cup triumph: The Mohammed Kaif-led India won the title in 2000 in Colombo, beating hosts Sri Lanka by six wickets in the final.
23 Anil Kumble’s all-10: He became only the second bowler, after England’s Jim Laker, to snare all 10 wickets in an innings (10/74), against Pakistan at Delhi in 1999.
24 Mithali’s world record 214: She hit a world record 214 in the third Test against England in Taunton in 2002.
CUE SPORTS
25 Wilson Lionel Garton Jones: He made history by becoming the first Indian to win the World Amateur Billiards Championship in 1958 in Calcutta (he won it again in 1964 in New Zealand).
26 Michael Joseph Ferreira: He emulated Jones by winning the World Amateur Billiards Championship in Melbourne in 1977 and then the World Professional Billiards Championship in Christchurch, New Zealand, the same year. (He regained the amateur title in 1981 in Delhi and won it again in 1983 in Malta.)
27 Geet Sethi: He won the IBSF World Billiards Championship in Delhi in 1985. (He retained it in the next edition in Belfast, Ireland, in 1987, and regained it in Christchurch in 2001. He also won the World Professional Billiards titles in 1992 1993, 1995, 1998 and 2006.)
28 Pankaj Advani: At 18, he created a sensation by winning the World Snooker Championship in Beijing in 2003. (In 2005, he won the IBSF World Billiards Championship titles, time format and the 150-up format, in Malta.)
29 O.B. Agarwal: The late Bombay-born player was the first Indian to win the World Snooker Championship in Dublin in 1984.
EQUESTRIAN
30 Asian Games gold: India won the gold in the three-day event at the Delhi games. It was a big achievement as the country had hardly won anything of note in equestrian earlier.
31 Asian Show Jumping Championship gold: J.S. Ahluwalia made history when he won the title in 1989 in Tokyo. (He repeated the feat in 1992 at the same venue.)
FOOTBALL
32 India at Olympics: India finished fourth at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne. They lost 0-3 to Bulgaria in the play-off for the bronze – their best-ever performance at the Olympics till date. (Only once has India qualified for the World Cup finals, in Brazil in 1950, but they were not allowed to play as they insisted playing bare feet.)
GOLF
33 Indian Open champion: P.G. “Biloo” Sethi, an amateur, was the first Indian to win the Indian Open Golf Championship in 1965 at Delhi. (In 1991, Ali Sher became the first Indian professional to win the Indian Open)
34 Atwal qualifies for PGA Tour: Arjun Atwal became the first Indian to play in the Professional Golfers Association (PGA) Tour in 2003. (He also became the first player on the Asian PGA to surpass $1 million in career earnings the same year by winning the $300,000 Hero Honda Masters in Delhi in 2003.)
35 Jeev in top 50: Jeev Milkha Singh was the first Indian to break into the top 50 of the official world golf rankings in 2007.
HOCKEY
36 Five Olympic gold medals: India won three successive gold medals at the Olympics, in 1948, 1952 and 1956, taking the gold-winning streak to six starting 1928. (After wining the silver in 1960, India again won the gold in 1964 and in 1980.)
37 World Cup 1975 triumph: Ajit Pal Singh-led India defeated Pakistan 2-1 in the final in Kuala Lumpur.
38 Asia Cup title: The Dhanraj Pillay-led India won their maiden Asia Cup when they beat Pakistan 4-2 in the final in Kuala Lumpur in 2003.
MOTOR SPORTS
39 Narain Karthikeyan: He became the first Indian to race in Formula One race when he made his debut for Team Jordan in Melbourne March 6, 2005.
POLO
40 World Cup triumph: India clinched their first World Cup in Deauville, France, in 1957. Late Rao Raja Hanut Singh and Thakur Kishen Singh were members of the team.
SHOOTING
41 Karni Singh rules: He ruled the roost by winning four gold medals at the Oslo World Shooting Championship in 1961.
42 Rana’s gold: Jaspal Rana won the gold in the junior standard pistol category at the 1994 World Championship in Milan, Italy.
43 Anjali’s air rifle gold: Anjali Bhagwat won the gold in the women’s air rifle of the 2003 World Cup in the US.
44 Olympic silver: Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore shot 179 points (135+44) to win the silver medal at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games.
45 Jung’s gold rush: Samaresh Jung won seven medals (five gold, one silver and one bronze) at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games and was awarded the Best Athlete of the Games.
46 Bindra wins gold: Abhinav Bindra won the 10m air rifle gold medal with 699.1 points (597+102.1) at the 2006 World Championship in Zagreb – a ‘first’ for India.
TABLE TENNIS
47 Commonwealth gold: The men’s team, comprising Sharath Kamal, Subhajit Saha, Soumyadeep Roy and Sibaji Dutta, made history by beating fancied Singapore in the final to win the gold at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games in 2006.
TENNIS
48 David Cup finals: India reached three Davis Cup finals, in 1966, 1974 and 1987. In 1966, they lost to Australia in Melbourne. In 1974 they refused to play South Africa because of its apartheid policy. In 1987, they lost to Sweden.
49 Ramanathan Krishnan: The legendary player reached the Wimbledon Championship semi-finals in 1960 and 1961, losing to eventual champions in Neale Fraser and Rod Laver respectively.
50 Vijay Amritraj: He won the first major title for India when he clinched the Volvo Grand Prix at Bretton Woods, US, in 1973.
51 Paes’ Olympic bronze: Leander Paes beat Fernando Meligeni of Brazil to win the historic singles bronze at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games.
52 Golden run by Paes-Bhupathi: The most successful Indian men’s pair won many doubles titles, both at Grand Slam events and on the ATP circuit, as also the Asian Games gold medals in 2002 in Busan and in Doha in 2006.
53 Sania Mirza: In 2003, she, partnering Russian Alisa Kleybanova, became the first and the youngest Indian woman to win a Grand Slam event when she clinched the junior Wimbledon doubles. She is the first Indian to enter the third round (Australian Open 2005) and the fourth round (US Open 205) of a senior Grand Slam event.
SWIMMING
54 Mihir Kumar Sen: This legendary long distance swimmer was the first Indian to cross the English Channel in 1958 and the first Asian to swim the dangerous Straits of Gibraltar, between Spain and Tangier.
VOLLEYBALL
55 Juniors win silver: The Rathish Nair-led Indian under-19 team achieved a stupendous feat by winning the silver medal at the 2003 World Championship in Suphanburi, Thailand. India lost to Brazil in the final.
WEIGHTLIFTING
56 Malleswari’s Olympic bronze: Karnam Malleswari became the first Indian woman to win an Olympic medal in 2000 when she won the bronze in the 69 kg category in Sydney. She lifted 240kg (110kg in snatch and 130kg in clean and jerk).
57 Kunjarani Devi: The diminutive lifter won India’s first gold (in 48kg category) at the Commonwealth Championships in Nauru in 1995, and became the world No. 1.
WRESTLING
58 Kasabha Jadhav: The diminutive 57 kg (bantamweight) exponent won India’s first individual medal, a bronze, at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics.
YATCHING
59 Farokh Tarapore-Kelly Subbanand Rao: The pair won the gold at the World Enterprise Championship in Mumbai in 1991. At the 1982 Asian Games, Tarapore became the first Indian to win a gold in an international yachting competition.
60 Pushpendra Garg-Homi Dady Motivala: The pair won the gold at the 1993 World Enterprise Championship in Zimbabwe.