Category: Sports

India has won 19 medals at the Under-20 Asian Athletics Championships, including six gold medals, held in Yecheon, Republic of Korea from June 4 to 7. The country finished third in the championships among 45 nations.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on June 9 praised Indian athletes for their impressive performance at the 20th Asian U20 Athletics Championships. Congratulating the athletes, he tweeted, “Proud of our athletes! They performed exceptionally well…We celebrate the triumph of our athletes and wish them the very best for their future endeavours.”

Japan topped the medals table with a total of 23 medals, including 14 golds, four silvers and five bronze. China came second with 11 golds, five silvers and three bronze medals. India matched China’s total of 19 medals, but finished third as they won fewer gold medals. India bagged six golds, seven silvers and six bronze medals.

The UAE will host the 21st edition of the U20 Asian Athletics Championships in Dubai. Major General Dr. Mohammed Al Mur, President of the UAE Athletics Federation, received the championship’s flag from Dahlan Jaman Al Hamad, Chairman of the Asian Athletics Association, on the sidelines of the 20th edition of the event, held in South Korea.

Al Mur stressed the UAE will host the championship for the first time. It will be a key milestone in the country’s sports track record and its development of plans and programmes aimed at enhancing the skills and talents of athletes and increasing their regional exposure.

Real Madrid’s Ballon d’Or winner Karim Benzema has joined Saudi Arabia club Al Ittihad. On a three-year contract, the soccer star is set to earn more than €400 million (over ₹3,500 crore). He also has an option of extending the contract for a further season.

Earlier, it was expected that Lionel Messi, who is leaving Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) after two seasons, will also move to another Saudi Arabian club, Al Hilal. However, on June 8, the 35-year-old Argentine confirmed he plans to join MLS side Inter Miami, snubbing Barcelona and Al-Hilal.

Al Ittihad is the rival club of Benzema’s former Real Madrid teammate and Al Nassr forward Cristiano Ronaldo. Benzema joined Madrid in 2009 from Ligue 1 side Lyon. He made 648 appearances for Madrid and is second on Real’s all-time goalscoring list with 354 after Ronaldo. He has lifted five Champions Leagues, four La Liga titles, and three Copas del Rey with Madrid.

However, after a stellar 2021-22 season when he led Real to Champions League glory and was rewarded with the Ballon d’Or, he was distressed by injuries in the just-completed season and had to miss France’s World Cup campaign in Qatar last year with a thigh problem.

World number three tennis player Novak Djokovic has broken the record for reaching most quarter-finals in the history of French Open. The 36-year-old Serb beat Peruvian tennis player Juan Pablo Varillas 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 in one hour and 57 minutes to reach his 17th Roland Garros quarter-final on June 4.

The 14-time champion Nadal, who held the previous record with 16 French Open quarter-finals, has just undergone psoas surgery. He revealed the usual recovery time for psoas surgery is five months, and Djokovic spoke of how he hoped to see ‘one of the greatest legends of tennis’ return healthy for a potential last season in 2024. Full of well wishes for his great rival, the Serb also shared that he was focussing on his next match against Karen Khachanov as he attempts to become the first 23-time males’ singles Grand Slam champion.

While many are astonished that Djokovic has reached more quarter-finals of Roland Garros, where Nadal has been so dominant, it is also a fact that Nadal has reached more quarter-finals of the Australian Open, where Djokovic has been champion 10 times.

Max Verstappen recorded his third consecutive victory to win the Spanish Grand Prix on June 4 at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, clinching the pole position and extending his lead in the Formula One championship by 53 points. The Red Bull driver has now registered his fifth win in seven races. He was followed by Lewis Hamilton who ranked second, equalling his best finish of the season.

Verstappen led home the Mercedes cars of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, with team mate Sergio Perez at fourth. He controlled the race from the beginning. This is his third triumph at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, while further increasing his lead in the championship standings. Mercedes took a double podium, with Hamilton surviving a first-lap clash with McLaren’s Lando Norris and beating Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz; Russell worked his way up from 12th on the grid led by a series of overtakes.

Perez put in a solid recovery drive – after starting 11th – to take fourth, just missing out on the final podium spot to Russell after a charging final stint. With Sainz, the racers completed the top five.

With Sunday’s win Red Bull has continued its unbeaten start to the campaign, with the reigning double world champion – who also earned the fastest lap bonus – moving 53 points clear of nearest rival Perez in the race for the drivers’ title. 

In the IPL 2023, though MS Dhoni led Chennai Super Kings picked the trophy, the opponent team of Gujarat Titans last week ended up bagging the most number of awards and titles

This IPL season belonged to the rising star of Gujarat Titans, Shubman Gill, who ended up winning the Orange Cap. He walked away with the most awards and cash prizes this IPL season, with four titles and Rs 40 lakh. His team mate Mohammed Shami won the Purple Cap in IPL 2023 after the CSK versus GT final. Interestingly, for Purple Cap, there was a tie among Gujarat Titans players Rashid Khan, Mohammed Shami, and Mohit Sharma.

Gill’s stellar performance this year bagged him the titles of Most Valuable Player, Gamechanger of the Season, and Most Fours (85). He won the most cash prize in IPL 2023, with Rs 28 lakh as an individual cash prize. Further, his team Gujarat Titans won Rs 13 crore as the runner-up, leading to him winning the most money in the sixteenth season of the IPL. He also set a new record by scoring three centuries in a single season of IPL, surpassing the likes of Virat Kohli, Jos Buttler, and Shikhar Dhawan, who had scored twice in a single IPL season.

Rajasthan Royals player Yashasvi Jaiswal is the IPL Emerging Player of the Season.

MS Dhoni scripted Indian Premier League (IPL) history on Monday, May 29, as he became the first cricketer to play 250 matches. He also became the first player to play 11 finals in IPL history – 10th with Chennai Super Kings and one with Rising Pune SuperGiant. The cricketer played under Steve Smith in the IPL 2017 final.

MS Dhoni made the records in the IPL 2023 final on the Reserve Day at the Narendra Modi Stadium as his team Chennai Super Kings faced Gujarat Titans in the summit clash. The final, which was scheduled to be held on May 28, was postponed to the next day due to consistent rain in Ahmedabad on Sunday. The two teams, the broadcasters and the fans returned to the iconic stadium for the mega final.

MS Dhoni was greeted by loud cheers when he walked into the middle to check the conditions in his training kit. In the 250 IPL matches, Dhoni has scored 5,082 runs at an average of 39.09 and a strike rate of 135.96 in 217 innings. His best score is 84 (not out). He has scored 24 half-centuries in these matches. He is the seventh-highest run scorer in the IPL’s history.

Indian badminton player HS Prannoy sealed the Malaysia Masters 2023 after winning the final against China’s Weng Hong Yang on May 28. Prannoy won the match 21-19, 13-21, 21-18. With this, the 30-year-old shuttler won his first-ever BWF World Tour title in the final of the men’s singles event. Prannoy won a cash prize of $31,500 with his victory.

Playing at the Axiata Arena in Kuala Lumpur, Prannoy and Weng Hongyang went toe-to-toe early on in the final game. Prannoy had made it to the final after Indonesia’s Christian Adinata withdrew with an injury in the semi-finals. In the earlier matches, Prannoy defeated Madrid Spain Master 2023 winner Kenta Nishimoto and reigning All-England champion Li Shi Feng in the quarter-finals and pre-quarterfinals, respectively.

The Indian sportsperson played an important role in India’s thrilling Thomas Cup victory last year, but was not able to pick an individual trophy since the 2017 US Open Grand Prix Gold. He came close to ending his title drought last year when he reached the finals of the Swiss Open and finished in the semifinals of the Malaysian Open and the Indonesia Super 1000.

Ganemat Sekhon has become the first Indian woman skeet shooter to win a medal in the junior world championships and the first to win a World Cup medal (bronze). In the shotgun World Cup in Almaty, Kazakhstan on May 23, the 22-year-old sports star won silver. India’s Darshna Rathore also won a bronze in the event.

A special day for Indian shooting, the world championship witnessed the country picking two senior individual medals in women’s skeet.

Kazakhstan’s Assem Orynbay won the gold. Orynbay and Ganemat ended the 60-shot final with 50 hits each. Ganemat missed one of the first two shoot-off targets, while Orynbay hit both. It was Ganemat’s second individual World Cup medal, after her victory at the 2021 ISSF World Cup in New Delhi.

It was Darshna Rathore’s first medal in a senior final. She qualified for the six-woman final in second spot after equalling the national record score of 120, while Ganemat made the cut at fourth place after shooting 117. Orynbay topped the qualification (121) in a quality field that included world No. 10 Konstantina Nikolaou of Cyprus.

Ganemat Sekhon and Angad Vir Singh Bajwa won gold medal for India in the mixed skeet at the ISSF World Cup in New Delhi in March 2021.

Chennai Super Kings (CSK) won the 2023 edition of the Indian Premier League claiming a five-wicket win over Gujarat Titans (GT) in a rain-affected, but thrilling final on May 29 at a packed Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. B. Sai Sudharsan slammed 96 in 47 balls as Gujarat Titans posted 214 for four after being asked to bat first.

The winning team was given a revised target of 171 in 15 overs after rain interrupted play at the start of the second innings of a final, which had already pushed to the reserve day owing to heavy downpour on May 28. CSK completed the task in the last ball. Ravindra Jadeja struck a six and a four off Mohit Sharma in the final two balls in the T20 league to win it for CSK.

In the first innings, GT were off to a flying start with their opening duo of Wriddhiman Saha and Shubman Gill putting on 67 runs in seven overs. While Gill was sent back by star left-arm spinning all-rounder Jadeja for a 20-ball 39, Saha went on to make 54 off 39 balls to lay a strong foundation for a daunting total. Sudharsan hit six sixes and eight fours in his whirlwind knock. 

Manchester City will face Inter Milan in the 2022/23 UEFA Champions League final at the Ataturk Olympic Stadium in Istanbul, Turkey on June 10. It is the first competitive match between the two sides as they aim to lift the most coveted European sports title.

Man City confirmed its place in this season’s showpiece event with a splendid 4-0 win over Real Madrid in the semi-final second leg at Etihad on May 17, with a 5-1 aggregate win. Inter Milan had already secured its spot in the final by beating AC Milan 3-0 on aggregate in their semi-final clash a day before.

It will be the second time Manchester City has figured in the final after its maiden appearance in 2021 when Chelsea edged the team out by 1-0. Meanwhile, Inter Milan is a three-time winner of European football’s most prestigious tournament. The team last won the Champions League in 2010 when it beat Bayern Munich 2-0 to complete the treble, a feat never before achieved by any team from either Italy or Germany.