In December, elite sports campuses in India — those sprawling facilities run by Sports Authority of India across the nation, including in Patiala, Bengaluru, Imphal, Guwahati, Bhopal, Sonepat and Delhi — wear a deserted look.
The sports fields are flat and empty; sleeping community dogs are the goalposts’ only companions.
The season has ended, the athletes are on a rare break home. It’s a time of year to be with family, let one’s hair down, eat the things one has denied oneself for months; and bask, briefly, in glories of the recent past.
This December will be extra-special for many of India’s athletes, because it has been that kind of year. A year in which PT Usha’s 39-year-old 400m hurdles record, a hallmark in Indian athletics, was equalled by Vithya Ramraj at the Asian Games.
A year in which the Indian hockey team went on a 17-match unbeaten streak (they are still on it), won the Asian Champions Trophy, and machine-gunned 68 goals in just seven games, on the way to winning the Asian Games and qualifying for the Paris Olympics.
The kind of year that saw the Indian cricket team rise to the top of the rankings in all three formats, and make the finals of the World Test Championship and the ODI World Cup in such convincing fashion that their losses in both still have the capacity to shock.
A year where we broke our Asian Games medals tally record by a massive margin (raising it from 70, a record set in 2018, to the current 107); had a badminton men’s doubles pair, Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, reach No. 1; had our first athletics world champion, in Neeraj Chopra; had R Praggnanandhaa up against Magnus Carlsen in the FIDE World Cup final; and had Sumit Antil set the world record in para javelin an astounding sixth time on the trot.
All of which makes it near-impossible to pick a favourite sporting moment from the year.
For sheer dominance of the field, one could go with the obvious choice: Neeraj Chopra. Picture him at the World Athletics Championships, running in, hair flying, the crowd at the Budapest stadium roaring him on. The commentator saying, “No Indian athlete has ever…”, a refrain in Chopra’s career that segues in ecstatic manner to “Chopra is now the first Indian to…”
First Indian to win gold at the World Athletics Championships in any discipline, first Indian to win gold at the Asian Games in javelin, first Indian to win at a Diamond League, and on and on.
The other astounding athlete of the year was Virat Kohli, with his record-breaking 765 runs in 11 innings at the ODI World Cup, which included the three centuries that saw him first equal and then break Sachin Tendulkar’s record of most centuries in ODIs.
But my favourite athletes of the year, if I’m being honest, are the ones who startled; who snuck in, struck a blow and stole the show. These would include Mohammed Shami at the ODI World Cup; a man who wasn’t even first choice for the playing XI, but who embraced his chance when Hardik Pandya was ruled out injured, to finish the tournament as its highest wicket-taker.
And Parul Chaudhary, in the women’s 5000m, at the Asian Games.
Chaudhary ran that race less than a day after she fought her way to silver in a gritty 3000m steeplechase, losing only to the reigning world champion, Bahrain’s Winfred Yavi. Chaudhary looked battle-scarred. For 4,900 of the 5,000 metres, head down, arms and legs pumping, she trailed Japan’s Ririka Hironaka by the width of two or three cars parked bumper to bumper.
If there was any hint of what was to come, it was in the metronymic pace she maintained, and the calm look on her face that said “This was always the plan”.
In the last 100 metres, a dramatic turnaround. As every other runner struggled to maintain pace, Chaudhary switched to a hidden gear, and began to accelerate. Past one, then two, then three runners, and finally, with 20 metres to go, past a disbelieving Hironaka.
Chaudhary became the first Indian woman to win the 5000m at the Asian Games, the first to medal in both steeplechase and 5000m. Her timings are not good enough for her to win at the Olympics, but I will keep my eyes peeled for the gutsy runner in Paris nonetheless.
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