Category: Sports

The Copper Queens of Zambia are all set to make their debut this year in Tokyo Olympics after winning the Confederation of African Football (CAF) Women’s Olympic qualifying tournament. The Olympic squad of Zambia was unveiled by Mwape on July 2nd. Mwape kept his faith in the core players that have served him well throughout the grueling five-round Olympic qualifying race.

The team has a three-month intensive camp in Zambia to play against two silver medalists Brazil and European champion the Netherlands and have Zambia’s Copper Queens have secured two friendlies against South Africa and Kenya. The Zambian won a two-legged tie after drawing 4-4 with Cameroon. Cooper queens lost against Stade Ahmadou Ahidjo in Yaounde 3-2 in their first match. Grace Chanda’s two goals in this match turned out to be very crucial. Mary Mwakapila and Hellen Mubanga put Zambia 2-0 in the first 45th minute in the second match, before Ajara Nchout Njoya scored for Cameroon in the last minutes of the game.

The Zambian team is all set to join hosts Japan, Brazil, The Netherlands, Britain, Canada, Sweden, and defending champions United States at Tokyo Olympics 2020. From The Asian Football Confederation, two teams are yet to be decided with Australia, Vietnam, South Korea, and China currently contesting the final round of qualification.

Viswanathan Anand bags the Sparkassen Trophy against Vladimir Kramnik at Dortmund on Sunday. This fascinating battle took place between the two former World Champions who fought for over four games in a brand new format of chess.

According to News Asia One Anand got it in just 40 moves and needed only a draw in the final game of the No-Castling Chess event. The event was devised by the Russian GM. Russian player Vladimir Kramnik started the day 1-2 down and had to win the game if he wanted to stop his old rival from claiming the trophy. He forced a draw in the third game on Saturday to keep alive his chances of leveling the scores in the four-game match.

The opening game was won by the Indian maestro Viswanathan Anand before the next three ended in stalemate. While Playing in white Tarrasch variation, Anand settled for a draw and secured his victory by 2.5-1.5.

AsiaOne stated that to make the game more interesting, castling is not allowed in this format. Castling is the special move to protect the king and activate the rook which gives the only time for a chess player to move two pieces in one move.

Last week Viswanathan Anand returned to over-the-board action at the Croatia Grand Chess Tour Tournament in Zagreb. The player bagged second place there.

In a successful, thrilling run chase, India beat Bangladesh by three wickets, and bagged the Asia Cup 2018, in the final of an extraordinary tournament. The Indian cricket team successfully secured their Asia Cup trophy by defeating worn-out Bangladesh cricket team in the tournament finals.

India, after winning the toss, elected fielding. Bangladesh openers played some outstanding strokes and gave a good start for their team. Liton Das, who scored his maiden 121 runs off 117 balls before being stumped by Dhoni, made a valuable contribution in runs, including 12 fours and 2 sixes, partnering with Mehidy Hasan Miraz. Despite the good start by Das and Miraz, the Bangladesh team’s middle order tumbled and lost their crucial three wickets in just 31 runs. Owing to the batting collapse, Bangladesh lost 10 wickets for 102 runs, and their innings lasted 48.3 overs.

Kuldeep Jadhav was very effective in his spell of 45 runs in 9 overs, and gave a lurch to the Bangladeshi team by nabbing three wickets. After a great start from Indian openers, India managed to restrain Bangladesh to just 222. In all, Bangladesh team put up a great show and won the hearts of true cricket lovers all over the world. In the run chasing of 223, Rohit Sharma’s magnificent 48, together with some outstanding knocks from MS Dhoni, Dinesh Karthik, Ravindra Jadeja and Bhuvneshwar Kumar made

India win off in a nail-biting last ball happenstance.

Ariya Jutanugarn wins The United States Women’s Open Golf Championship, which is one of the thirteen national championships conducted by United States Golf Association (USGA) and is the oldest of five other major championships of the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA). The Championship came into being 72 years ago in 1946. The Tournament is usually held in early July and is the third major of the LPGA season. The winner of the event bags a large sum of money which is considered the highest purse in women’s golf. In 2017, the amount was $5 Million.

Ariya is the first player from Thailand to win the championship. Her win came after she parred the fourth extra hole after earlier finishing regulation at 11-under-par 277. She suffered a back nine collapse before beating her South Korean opponent, Kim Hyo-joo in the playoff at the U.S women’s open.

Through this win, she has joined Annika Sorenstam, Karrie Webb, Se Ri Pak and Inbee Park as the only players to win both the US women’s Open and the British Open, which she won in 2016. Some considered the tournament to be the most difficult day of her career, but she walked away bagging the trophy and the cash prize worth $900,000.

Since 2018, the U.S Women’s Open is being held prior to the Men’s tournament in order to provide optimum playing conditions to the world’s best players across the various and finest golf courses that the U.S has to offer.

As per the latest Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) and Association of Tennis Professionals rankings, Naomi Osaka of Japan and Novak Djokovic of Serbia continue to be World’s Number 1 tennis players. The recent ATP and WTA rankings were announced before 2019 Wimbledon Championships.

In an unchanged top 20 WTA rankings, Naomi Osaka has retained the World’s Number 1 spot by being 252 points ahead of World’s Number 2 Ashleigh Barty of Australia. Similarly, for the men’s championship, Novak Djokovic leads the men’s ATP raking ahead of Rafael Nadal (French Open winner 2019) and former World’s Number 1 Roger Federer. Men’s top ranking remains unchanged even after Rafael Nadal claimed the Roland Garros title in the final with a victory over Dominic Thiem. The results for 2019 Wimbledon Championships have also been declared. It is a Grand Slam tennis tournament that took place at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, London, United Kingdom.

The defending Gentlemen’s singles champion Novak Djokovic retained his title, while the defending Ladies’ singles champion Angelique Kerber lost in the second round to Lauren Davis. Simona Halep won the Ladies’ Singles title.

Colombia’s Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah beat French pair Nicolas Mahut and Edouard Roger-Vasselin to win the Wimbledon men’s doubles final. Hsieh Su-wei and Barbora Strýcová won the women’s doubles title, defeating Dabrowski and Xu in the final.

National Sports Day of India marks the birth anniversary of great hockey player Lt. Dhyan Chand. To celebrate his association with domain of sports, every year Indian government honours the players on 29 August, who perform exquisitely in sports.

This year (2016) a large number of nominations were received for the awards. These nominations were considered by the Selection Committees which comprise erstwhile Olympians, Arjuna Awardees, Dronacharya Awardees, Dhyan Chand Awardees, Sports Journalists/Experts/Commentators and sports administrators. For Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award and Arjuna Awards, Selection Committee was led by Justice S.K. Agarwal, Retired Delhi High Court Judge. Selection Committee for Dronacharya Awards and Dhyan Chand Awards was headed by Ms. M.C. Mary Kom. And for Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puruskar, Selection Committee was headed by Shri Rajiv Yadav, Secretary (Sports).

This year PV Sindhu (Badminton), Sakshi Malik (Wrestling), Dipa Karmakar (Gymnastics) and Jitu Rai (Shooting) are being felicitated with Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratan Award for their praiseworthy performance in Rio Olympics (2016).
Besides, Shri Nagapuri Ramesh (Athletics), Shri Sagar Mal Dhayal (Boxing), Shri Raj Kumar Sharma (Cricket), Shri Bishweshwar Nandi (Gymnastics), Shri S. Pradeep Kumar, (Swimming, Lifetime), and Shri Mahabir Singh, (Wrestling, Lifetime) are conferred with Dronacharya Award.

Further, players who are honored with Arjuna Awards are Shri Rajat Chauhan (Archery), Ms. Lalita Babar (Athletics), Shri Sourav Kothari (Billiards & Snooker), Shri Shiva Thapa (Boxing), Shri Ajinkya Rahane (Cricket), Shri Subrata Paul (Football), and Ms. Rani (Hockey), etc.

Dhyan Chand Award is received by Ms. Satti Geetha, Shri Sylvanus Dung Dung, and Shri Rajendra Pralhad Shelke for Athletics, Hockey, and Rowing respectively.

Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puruskar is won by Hockey Citizen Group, Dadar Parsee Zorostrian cricket club, Usha School of Athletics, and STAIRS in Identification and Nurturing of Budding and Young Talent category. India Infrastructure Finance Corporate Limited has won the award for Encouragement to Sports through Corporate Social Responsibility. In this list, Reserve Bank of India received the award for Employment to Sportspersons and Other Welfare Measures. Also, in Sports for Development category Subroto Mukherjee Sports Education Society won this prestigious award.

The 2018 Winter Olympics took place from 9th February to 25th February 2018 in Pyeongchang County, Gangwon Province, South Korea. They are also officially known as the XXIII Olympic Winter Games, and are a major attraction at global level, as grand as the Summer Olympics, but attended and competed by fewer countries and athletes, as only winter sports are allowed.

It was the first Winter Olympics and held at South Korea and the second Olympics held in the country. This 2018 Winter Olympics was also the first Olympics of the 3 successive Olympics to be held in East Asia, the other 2 being Tokyo’s Summer Olympics of 2020 and the Beijing’s 2022 Winter Olympics. The event featured a total of 122 events related to 15 sports including additional sports like “big air” snowboarding, mixed doubles curling and mass start speed skating. A total of 2914 athletes from 92 countries associated with National Olympic Committee participated in the event.  Norway headed the total medal tally with 39 followed by Germany with 31 and Canada with 29 medals. A total of 307 medals were presented at the events.

Accentuating an inspirational outlook towards specially abled, the fifteenth Summer Paralympics was celebrated in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 7 September to 18 September 2016. This year, the event attained the position of being second-most-attended Paralympic Games in history.

The event began with the theme “Todo Mundo tem um Coração” (“Everybody Has a Heart”) and witnessed a huge participation of around 160 National Paralympic Committees with a total of 4,350 athletes. In addition to this, two refugee athletes namely, Syrian-born swimmer Ibrahim Al Hussein and Shahrad Nasajpour, an Iranian discus thrower, also took part in the games as independents. This was the first time a tremendous step was taken by the authorities for the refugees and asylee athletes. Two new sports namely, canoeing and the triathlon were also added in the list of sports this year.

The President of International Paralympic Committee, Phillip Craven spoke on the opening ceremony and invited viewers to “see the true meaning of sport and the true definition of ability”. He said that Paralympians have the ability to change the existing perceptions and open a whole new world of endless opportunity.

The eleven days’ event ended on 18th September in the famous Maracana football stadium. While China spearheaded the league with 239 medals, Britain remained on the second position with 147 medals in total. Ukraine and the United States followed with 117 and 115 medals respectively.

The Closing ceremony was a great success filled with amazing performances filled with enthusiasm and inspirations. The ceremony was dazzled with various concert performances by an array of prominent Brazilian musicians. There was also a formal handover to Tokyo which is to host the 2020 Summer Paralympics. The IPC President also announced that he would bestow the Paralympic Order—the IPC’s highest honor, on the people of Brazil and Rio de Janeiro for their enormous support of the Paralympics.

Ariya Jutanugarn wins The United States Women’s Open Golf Championship, which is one of the thirteen national
championships conducted by United States Golf Association (USGA) and is the oldest of five other major championships of the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA). The Championship came into being 72 years ago in 1946. The Tournament is usually held in early July and is the third major of the LPGA season. The winner of the event bags a large sum of money which is considered the highest purse in women’s golf. In 2017, the amount was
$5 Million.

Ariya is the first player from Thailand to win the championship. Her win came after she parred the fourth extra hole after earlier finishing regulation at 11-under-par 277. She suffered a back nine collapse before beating her South Korean opponent, Kim Hyo-joo in the playoff at the U.S women’s open.

Through this win, she has joined Annika Sorenstam, Karrie Webb, Se Ri Pak and Inbee Park as the only players to win both the US women’s Open and the British Open, which she won in 2016. Some considered the tournament to be the most difficult day of her career, but she walked away bagging the trophy and the cash prize worth $900,000.

Since 2018, the U.S Women’s Open is being held prior to the Men’s tournament in order to provide optimum playing conditions to the world’s best players across the various and finest golf courses that the U.S has to offer.

India’s star boxer Vijender Singh added another feather to his cap of achievements by clinching the WBO Asia Pacific Super Middleweight title. The 30-year-old player defeated the former WBC European champion Kerry Hope at Delhi’s Thyagraj Stadium and recorded his seventh straight win in the circuit.

Vijender, who has won India’s first Olympic medal for boxing, took all 10 rounds to dismantle the Welsh-born Australian Hope. He scored 98-92, 98-92, 100-90 to be the unanimous winner. He is now ranked 15th in the WBO rankings.

“This comes after a lot of hard work put in by me, my trainer, my team,” an emotional Vijender said after the win I thank my coach, my promoter and my team who have done a fantastic job.” He further added, “It’s not about myself, it’s about my nation, my country.”

An ecstatic Lee Beard who coached Vijender Singh showed his appreciation for the world champion, “When I first saw him, it took just 15 minutes for me to gauge that he will win a world title. I looked into his eyes and I saw a fire. Whatever he seems to focus on, he gets it. Of all the fighters I have trained, he is one of the best when it comes to learning; he is an extremely quick learner.”

It was Vijender’s first bout in his homeland after he turned professional last year. Delhi’s Thyagraj stadium was jam-packed with his fans cheering for him. Many celebrities like Randeep Hooda, Mary Kom, Virender Sehawag, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, and Rahul Gandhi were also present in the stadium to witness the epic win. As soon as the results were announced, Twitter flooded with congratulatory messages for the champion. Prime Minister and the President also congratulated Vijender for his classic win.