Prakash Padukone is an Indian former badminton player. He was ranked World No. 1 in 1980; the same year he became the first Indian to win the All England Open Badminton Championships. He was awarded the Arjuna award in 1972 and the Padma Shri in 1982 by the Government of India. He is one of the co-founders of Olympic Gold Quest, a foundation dedicated to the promotion of Olympic sports in India.
Dame Valerie Kasanita Adams is a retired New Zealand shot putter. She is a four-time World champion, four-time World Indoor champion, two-time Olympic, three-time Commonwealth Games champion and twice IAAF Continental Cup winner. She has a personal best throw of 21.24 metres (69.7 ft) outdoors and 20.98 metres (68.8 ft) indoors. These marks are Oceanian, Commonwealth and New Zealand national records. She also holds the Oceanian junior record (18.93 m) and the Oceanian youth record (17.54 m), as well as the World Championships record, World Indoor Championships record and Commonwealth Games record.
Saina Nehwal is an Indian badminton player. A former world no. 1, she has won 24 international titles, which includes ten Superseries titles. Although she reached the world's 2nd in 2009, it was only in 2015 that she was able to attain the world no. 1 ranking, thereby becoming the only female player from India and thereafter the second Indian player – after Prakash Padukone – to achieve this feat. She has represented India three times in the Olympics, winning a bronze medal in her second appearance at London 2012.
Krishna Poonia is an international gold-medalist Indian discus thrower, track-and-field athlete, 2 times Olympics participant, Padma Shri and Arjuna Award recipient, politician from the Congress party and the former MLA from Sadulpur constituency in Rajasthan. She participated in 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games. In 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games, she won a gold medal. She was appointed the President Of the Rajasthan State Sports Council in February 2022.
Vikas Shive Gowda is an Indian discus thrower and shot putter. Born in Mysore, he grew up in Frederick, Maryland in the United States. His father, Shive Gowda, coached the 1988 Indian Olympic track team. Vikas Gowda is a Padma Shri awardee in 2017.
Dylan Armstrong is a Canadian athletics coach and retired competitive shot putter. He is the 2008 Olympic bronze medallist, a two-time World Athletics Championships medallist, a two-time Pan American Games champion, and the 2010 Commonwealth Games champion in that discipline. He was awarded his Olympic bronze medal in 2015, seven years after the event, following the doping disqualification of competitor Andrei Mikhnevich.
India has a history of sports dating back to the Vedic period, with Western sports having been imported during British rule. Cricket is the most popular spectator sport; it generates the highest television viewership, with the Indian Premier League (IPL) being the most-followed league in the country. Football has also gained popularity, with the Indian Super League (ISL) being the highest level of domestic football, and the national team winning multiple gold medals at the Asian and South Asian Games. Additional football accomplishments include India having reached the Groupstage of the 1960 Olympics, qualified for the 1950 FIFA World Cup, and won the SAFF Championship. Other sports include kabaddi, badminton, tennis, and athletics, with kho-kho becoming the fourth-most viewed sport. India has also had success in field hockey, winning the World Cup and multiple medals in the Olympic Games. Sports such as golf, rugby, boxing, kickboxing, mixed martial arts, motorsport, wrestling, and basketball are featured throughout the country.
Thokchom Nanao Singh is an Indian boxer from Khoijuman Maning Leikai village in Bishnupur district of Manipur. He trains at Pune-based Army Sports Institute and is supported by Olympic Gold Quest, a not-for-profit foundation to identify and support Indian athletes.
India hosted the 2010 Commonwealth Games which were held in Delhi from 3 to 14 October 2010. India won 101 medals in total, including 38 Gold medals, enabling it to finish the Games at second position behind Australia. For the first time in the history of the Games India won over 100 medals in total. For the first time in the history of the Games, India won a medal in Gymnastics, where Ashish Kumar won a Silver and a Bronze. And it was after a gap of 52 years that India won a Gold in Athletics when Krishna Poonia won Gold in Women's discus throw and when Geeta Phogat won India's first ever gold medal in women's wrestling.
Bahadur Singh Chauhan, born on 8 February 1946 in a Sikh Rajput family is a former Indian shot putter. Between 1973 and 1985 he won three gold, two silver and three bronze medals at the Asian Games and Championships. He placed 15th at the 1980 Summer Olympics, and was honoured with Arjuna award and Padma Shri. He is a recipient of Dronacharya Award, by the government of India. He worked as the head coach of India's athletics team before retiring in 2020
Jaisha Orchatteri Puthiya Veetil, commonly known as O. P. Jaisha, is an Indian track and field athlete from Kerala. She is the current national record holder in the marathon, a distinction she achieved by clocking 2:34:43 at the 2015 World Championships in Beijing. In the process she bettered her own mark of 2:37:29, set at the 2015 Mumbai Marathon. She is also a former national record holder in the 3000 metres steeplechase.
Sourabh Vij is an Indian shot putter. He won gold at the second Commonwealth Youth Games. In 2006 he won an Asian Junior silver medal and represented India at the 2006 World Junior Championships in Athletics.
India competed at the 2011 Commonwealth Youth Games held in the Isle of Man from 7 to 13 September 2011. India has participated in all the editions of the Commonwealth Youth Games. The nation was represented by the Indian Olympic Association, which is responsible for the Commonwealth Games and Commonwealth Youth Games in India.
In India, the Athletics was introduced during the period of the British Raj. The sport is governed by the Athletics Federation of India, which was formed in 1946.
Manpreet Kaur is an Indian professional Olympic shot putter. Born in Ambala, her gold-medal winning performance of 18.86m at the 2017 Asian Grand Prix in Jinhua, China turned out to be a world-leading throw, taking her to the No. 1 spot in the rankings. Kaur was qualified to represented India at Summer Olympics at Rio 2016 in shot put.
Abhay Singh Chautala is an Indian politician. He was a member of the Haryana Legislative Assembly from Ellenabad. He served as Leader of the Opposition in Haryana Legislative Assembly from 2014 to 2019. He has been elected to the Haryana Legislative Assembly for four terms since 2010. He served as the 10th president of Indian Olympic Association. He also served as president of the Boxing Federation of India. He is grandson of Devi Lal, former deputy prime minister of India. He is a member of the Indian National Lok Dal.
Inderjeet Singh is an Indian athlete specializing in the shot put. He won the gold medal at the Asian Athletics Championships as he was a good man 2015. He competed at the 2013 Summer Universiade and won the silver medal with a throw of 19.70 m, his personal best at that time. He is currently supported by Anglian Medal Hunt Company.
Manu Bhaker is an Indian sport shooter. She has won 2 medals at the Olympics, 21 medals at the World Championships and World Cup, 1 medal at Commonwealth Games, and 5 medals at the Asian Games and Asian Championships. Bhaker won the bronze medal in the 10m pistol event at the 2024 Paris Olympics and became the first Indian woman shooter to win an Olympics medal. She won another bronze in the 10m pistol mixed team event, thus becoming the first Indian to win two medals in a single Olympic Games.
Tajinderpal Singh Toor is an Indian shot putter who is a two-time Asian champion, an Asian Games gold-medallist, four time national champion, the former Asian record holder and the current holder of the national record of 21.77m.
