Colonel Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore AVSM, OLY is an Indian politician and former Olympian. Rathore is a Member of Parliament (MP) in Lok Sabha from Jaipur Rural seat. As of March 2019, he is the Minister of State for Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports in the Government of India. He served in Indian Army and retired as Colonel.
The 1951 Asian Games, officially known as the First Asian Games, was a multi-sport event celebrated in New Delhi, India from 4 to 11 March 1951. The Games received names like First Asiad and 1951 Asiad. A total of 489 athletes representing 11 Asian National Olympic Committees (NOCs) participated in 57 events from eight sports and discipline. The Games was the successor of the Far Eastern Games and the revival of the Western Asiatic Games. The 1951 Asiad were originally scheduled to be held in 1950, but postponed until 1951 due to delays in preparations. On 13 February 1949, the Asian Games Federation was formally established in Delhi, with Delhi unanimously announced as the first host city of the Asian Games.
Anju Bobby George is an Indian athlete. Anju Bobby George made history when she won the bronze medal in long jump at the 2003 World Championships in Athletics in Paris. With this achievement, she became the first Indian athlete ever to win a medal in a World Championships in Athletics jumping 6.70 m. She went on to win the gold medal at the IAAF World Athletics Final in 2005, a performance she considers her best. Anju was upgraded to gold status from silver in the 2005 World Athletics Final in Monte Carlo following the disqualification of Tatyana Kotova of Russia by the International Association of Athletics Federations, following the recent re-testing of the latter’s sample collected at the 2005 World Championship in Helsinki. She was awarded the Arjuna Award in 2002. She had got 5th position with personal best score of 6.83 at the 2004 Athens Olympics.
Field hockey, was introduced at the Olympic Games as a men's competition at the 1908 Games in London, with six teams, including four from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
Terence ("Terry") Arthur Walsh is a field hockey coach and a former player who played as a striker for Australia. He represented Australia in two Olympic Games, winning a silver medal at the 1976 Games in Montreal. Following his playing career, he became a coach and had successful spells with Australia and Netherlands. He also coached the Indian men's team and guided the team to its first gold medal at the Asian Games after 16 years.
Pilavullakandi Thekkeparambil Usha is a retired Indian track and field athlete. She has been associated with Indian athletics since 1979. She is often called the "queen of Indian track and field".
The Pakistan national field hockey team is administered by the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF), the governing body for hockey in Pakistan. They have been a member of the International Hockey Federation (FIH) since 1948 and founding member of the Asian Hockey Federation (ASHF) which formed in 1958. Pakistan is the most successful national field hockey team in the Hockey World Cup with four championships: 1971, 1978, 1982 and 1994. Pakistan also has the best overall performance in World Cup history in both proportional and absolute terms with 53 victories in 84 matches played, seven time draws, six appearances in the finals and only 24 losses. Pakistan national team has played in all FIH World Cup editions with only one absence in 2014. The green shirts is also one of the most successful national teams in the Asian Games with eight gold medals: 1958, 1962, 1970, 1974, 1978, 1982, 1990 and 2010, the highest number of times a country has come first, and the only Asian team to have won the prestigious Champions Trophy with three championships: 1978, 1980 and 1994. Pakistan have won a total of 29 official international titles to professional and grassroots level selections, with three gold medals in the Olympic Games field hockey tournaments in Rome 1960, Mexico City 1968 and Los Angeles 1984.
Manathoor Devasia Valsamma is a retired Indian athlete. She was the second Indian woman to win an individual Gold medal at the Asian Games and the first to win it on Indian soil.
Kabaddi made its first appearance as an exhibition sport at the 1982 and became an Asian Games event since 1990 in Beijing, China. Until the 2014 edition, India always dominated the event by winning highest number of gold medals in both men's and women's category.
India has competed in fourteen of the eighteen previous Commonwealth Games; starting at the second Games in 1934. India has also hosted the games once.
Many different kinds of sports are played in India ranging from tribal games to mainstream sports such as football, cricket, etc., much due to India's diversity of culture, people, tribe as well as due to its colonial legacy. Hockey is the most successful sport for India at Olympics in which India has won eight Olympic gold medals. Kabaddi is the most popular indigenous sport in the country. Other popular sports in India are badminton, football, basketball, chess, shooting, wrestling, boxing, tennis, squash, weightlifting, gymnastics, athletics and table tennis. Some indigenous sports are also popular in India such as Kho-kho, Kabaddi, Leg Cricket, Fighter kite, Polo and Gillidanda among others. There are some popular sports which have originated in India such as Chess, Leg Cricket, Snooker, Kabbadi, Khido Khundi which is an ancient version of Field Hockey. India has won Olympic medals in Badminton, Wrestling, Shooting, Weightlifting, Boxing and Tennis. India has also won World Cups in Cricket, Field Hockey and Kabbadi.
The 2010 South Asian Games, officially the XI South Asian Games, was a major multi-sport event that took place from 29 January to 8 February 2010 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. This was the third time that the Bangladeshi capital hosted the South Asian Games, thus becoming the first city to hold the games three times.
India is a member of the South Asian Zone of the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA), and has participated in the Asian Games since their inception in 1951. The Indian Olympic Association, established in 1927, and recognised in the same year by the International Olympic Committee, is the National Olympic Committee for India.
Ashish Kumar is an Indian gymnast from Allahabad, who won India's first-ever medals in gymnastics, in October 2010 at the 2010 Commonwealth Games and became the most successful Indian gymnast in Commonwealth Games history, by winning bronze and silver medals in different gymnastic events.
Athletics at the 2010 Asian Games was held in Guangzhou, China from 21 to 27 November 2010. A total of 47 events were contested – 24 by men and 23 by women – matching the Olympic athletics programme. The 42 track and field events on the programme were hosted at the Aoti Main Stadium while the marathons and racewalking competitions took place around the city's University Town. Sixteen Asian Games records were broken during the seven-day competition.
The 2010 Asian Games, also known as the XVI Asiad, was a multi-sport event held in Guangzhou, China from 12 to 27 November 2010. The event saw 9,704 athletes from 45 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) competing in 476 events in 42 sports. This medal table ranks the participating NOCs by the number of gold medals won by their athletes.
The 1982 Asian Games was a multi-sport event held in Delhi, India, from 12 November to 4 December 1982. A total of 3,411 athletes from 33 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) participated in these games, competing in 147 events in 21 sports and 22 disciplines. The number of participating countries was the greatest in Asian Games history. Handball, equestrian, rowing and golf were included for the first time; fencing and bowling were excluded. This medal table ranks the participating NOCs by the number of gold medals won by their athletes.
In India, the sport of athletics was introduced during the period of the British Raj. The sport is governed at national level by the Athletics Federation of India, which was formed in 1946. Despite its large population, at the top level of the sport few Indian athletes have won a medal in a global or major championship. This began to change in the 21st century, when Indians started taking greater interest in athletics more generally and improved facilities for the sport began to be built at a local level. At a continental level, it has been among the more successful Asian nations, though some distance behind China and Japan.
Machettira Raju Poovamma is an Indian sprinter who specialises in the 400 metres distance. As a member of the Indian 4×400 m relay teams she participated in the 2016 Olympics and won gold medals at the 2014 and 2018 Asian Games and 2013 and 2017 Asian championships; individually she won a silver medal in 2013 and a bronze in 2014 at those competitions. She received the Arjuna Award in 2015 for her contributions to athletics.
India competed at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta and Palembang, Indonesia, from 18th August to 2nd September. Neeraj Chopra was the flag bearer for the opening ceremony while Rani Rampal was named as the flag bearer for the closing ceremony.
