My Science School

P.V. Sindhu represented India at the 2016 Summer Olympics, becoming the first Indian badminton player to reach a final. She won the silver medal after losing out to Spain's Carolina Marin.

Along with wrestler Sakshi Malik, who won a bronze on Aug. 18, Sindhu is so far one of the only two medalists in this year’s Indian Olympic contingent, the largest the country has ever sent to the games. She’s also the youngest Indian to ever win an Olympic medal.

Her epic performance in Rio comes after years of training under 2001 All England Open Badminton champion Pullela Gopichand. Sindhu, who comes from a family of volleyball players, began playing badminton at the age of eight after discovering the sport by chance. Since then, she’s spent almost all her time training at Gopichand’s academy in Hyderabad. Over the years, she’s won medals at several domestic and international competitions, including a bronze at the 2013 World Badminton Championships in Guangzhou, China.

 

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Saina Nehwal's hard work over the years was rewarded by a perfectly-timed stroke of luck as she clinched a historic bronze medal in the London Olympics to cover new ground for Indian badminton in a mostly successful year.

After a rather subdued performance last year, Saina turned 2012 into a milestone year for Indian badminton when she fetched the country's first Olympic medal at the London Games, winning the bronze in August.

In the Olympic year, Saina won two Grand Prix Gold titles -- Swiss Open and Thailand Open -- besides winning the Indonesia Super Series and Denmark Super Series. She also reached the finals of the French Open.

Saina, as usual, was the brightest name in Indian badminton as she geared up for the Olympics with some stupendous performances early in the year.

She first defended her Swiss Open title by defeating then World No. 2 Wang Shixian of China, a day after she turned 22.

With the Olympics approaching, the Hyderabadi stepped up her performance and clinched the Thailand Open by defeating local talent Ratchanok in June.

 

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Indian weightlifter Karnam Malleswari holds the distinguished honour of being the first woman from India to win a medal at the Olympics.

Her career’s crowning achievement came at the Sydney 2000 Olympics. Lifting 110kg and 130kg in the ‘snatch’ and ‘clean and jerk’ categories respectively to total 240kg, Karnam Malleswari became the first Indian woman to win a prestigious Olympic bronze medal.

Born in Andhra Pradesh’s Voosavanipeta hamlet, Karnam Malleswari began her training in the sport at the age of 12.

Before long, success came calling. Karnam Malleswari placed third in the World Championships in 1993 and then followed up with consecutive 54kg world titles in 1994 and 1995, before bookending her run with another third-place effort in 1996.

On two occasions, in 1994 and 1998, Karnam Malleswari narrowly missed on Asian Games gold medals, having to settle for silver instead.

The success built up momentum as she headed to Sydney for the Olympics. While she did her country proud by earning a bronze, Karnam Malleswari had mixed feelings. She felt she missed out on a gold due to a miscalculation within the Indian camp that suggested that she had to lift more than she needed for the top spot on the podium.

 

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Mary Kom became the first Indian woman boxer to win an Olympic medal, claiming bronze in the 51kg category.

Initially interested in athletics, Mary Kom switched to boxing as she found her inspiration from another Manipuri puglisit Dingko Singh who won gold at the 1998 Asian Games.

Her coach at the time, K Kosana Meitei noticed Mary’s spark and acumen to pick up the basics of boxing.

Mary Kom's love for the sport only grew deeper and she first created waves in 2000, winning both the Manipur State Boxing Championship and the West Bengal Regional Championship.

In 2001, at just 18 years old, Mary Kom won silver in the 48 kg category at the AIBA women’s World Boxing Championship in Scranton, USA.

Although she was easily outboxed in the final by Hulya Sahin, a much more experienced opponent, Mary Kom had announced her arrival on the international stage. 

It also began Mary’s well-documented love story with the boxing world championships.

 

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Men's field hockey was the only team-based sport in which India had its representation in these Olympic games. As a pleasant surprise, the shooting team came successful with a silver medal, the winner being Capt. Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore. He was the first Indian to win an individual silver medal.

Shooter Rathore finished second in the final of the men's double-trap shooting event. Rathore scored 44 out of 50 in the final round. His score of 179 gave him the silver medal, India first individual silver ever at the Olympics. Rathore, a post-graduate in Strategic Studies and a batch topper at the Indian Military Academy, Dehra Dun, has had only honours to his credit. He graduated as Cadets Sergeant Major (CSM) of Echo Squadron, ’77 Course in December 1989 and was known as a ‘leader with a mission’. Rathore created history by helping India in getting its first individual event silver medal in the Athens Olympic since independence. He by his determination, single goal dedication, mental toughness has achieved the height of glory and won the heart of every citizen of the country.

 

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Between 1928 and 1980, Indian hockey team won 8 gold medals (1928, 1932, 1936, 1948, 1952, 1956, 1964, 1980). These were the only medal for India during that period.

In the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, besides the gold from Indian men's hockey team, Khashaba Dadasaheb Jadhav won a bronze in men's wrestling freestyle bantamweight category.

India won silver in men's hockey in 1960.

In 1968 and 1972, men's hockey team managed to clinch bronze medals.

In 1996, Leander Paes won a bronze in tennis. > Read: The phenomenon that's Leander Paes

In 2000 and 2004 Karnam Malleswari (weightlifting – 69 kg category) and Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore (shooting – double trap) won bronze and silver medals respectively.

In 2008, Abhinav Bindra became the first Indian to win an individual gold medal. Vijender Singh (boxing) and Sushil Kumar won a bronze each at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The 2012 London Olympics was a good event for India, winning 6 individual medals.

 

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Sakshi Malik (born 3 September 1992) is an Indian freestyle wrestler. At the 2016 Summer Olympics, she won the bronze medal in the 58 kg category, becoming the first Indian female wrestler to win a medal at the Olympics.

She was born in India's Haryana state, where women were for some time not allowed to take part in wrestling events.

The 23-year-old started training young, having gained support from her parents to pursue the sport. Media reports say locals initially berated her parents, telling them that their daughter would become undesirable to potential suitors.

But she went on to earn a silver medal at the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games and walked away with the bronze at the 2014 Incheon Asian Games.

She comes from the district of Rohtak, which gained notoriety in 2014, after two sisters fought back against a group of men who accosted them on a public bus. The state of Haryana is also known for having the most severe gender imbalance in India a sign, campaigners say, of high levels of female foeticide.

Women's wrestling really took off in India in the mid-1990s. But it was not until 2002 that girls were allowed to train with boys in Haryana.

Now all three of India's female wrestlers at the Olympics, a record for the country in any case, are from that state.

 

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Abhinav Bindra, an Indian businessman and retired sport shooter. He is currently India's only individual Olympic gold medalist. His gold in the 10-meter air rifle event at the 2008 Summer Olympics was also India's first Olympic gold medal since 1980. He is the first Indian to have held concurrently the world and Olympic titles for the men's 10-meter air rifle event, having earned those honors at the 2008 Summer Olympics and the 2006 ISSF World Shooting Championships. Bindra has also won nine medals at the Commonwealth Games and three gold medals at the Asian Games. Born on 28 September 1982 in Dehradun, the future Olympic champion began his sporting journey after taking inspiration from the shooters he saw on television.

Success soon came his way. The Indian shooter went to the 1998 Commonwealth Games as a 15-year-old and then travelled to the Sydney Olympics in 2000 as the youngest Indian participant.

It was a breakthrough year as he won six gold medals at various events and won bronze at the World Cup, setting a then-junior record score. He then won gold in the 10m air rifle pairs and silver in the singles at the 2002 Commonwealth Games.

He started a non-profit organization called the Abhinav Bindra Foundation, an initiative whose aim was to make athletes stronger and more aware using sports science and technology. Apart from this, the ex-shooter has also given back to the sport in other ways.

He was part of the International Sport Shooting Federation (ISSF) and International Olympic Committee (IOC)’s Athlete Commissions where he has brought the participants’ issues to the fore and helped them in their development.

 

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Australian Margaret Smith Court became the second woman in history to secure titles in all four Grand Slam tournaments in a calendar year in 1970 after retiring temporarily for two years. She also won more titles—24 to be exact—than any other woman player on the pro tour after earning her first in 1960. She would earn five US Championships over her career.

Court holds an amazing record of having won every possible title, women’s singles, mixed doubles and women’s doubles, in all four Grand Slams in a calendar year, giving her the far reaching “Boxed-set” title. Only one of three players to ever achieve this, she is the only one to manage it twice—an extraordinary feat.

At age 55 former world No. 1 male pro Bobby Riggs was engaged in a match with Court in 1973 and defeated her easily. It was said she thought the match was a given win for her and as a result did not take it seriously.

She was on and off the court over the course of her marriage and child bearing years. Margaret Smith Court made her last Grand Slam final appearance in 1975 and retired after giving birth to her fourth child in 1977.

 

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Former Australian fast bowler Glenn McGrath was nicknamed 'Pigeon' because of his thin legs as a youngster. McGrath's New South Wales teammate Brad McNamara gave him the nickname when he said, "You've stolen a pigeon's legs, McGrath." The pacer, who was born on February 9, 1970, is the most successful fast bowler in cricket history with 949 wickets across formats.

Glenn McGrath wasn't the quickest or the canniest ever, but in a career spanning over 14 years, he had the simplest of tool kits for menacing returns - scalping a staggering tally of 563 Test wickets to end up statistically, if not otherwise, as the greatest ever fast bowler. His famous partnership with Shane Warne bullied oppositions, crippling them mentally to engineer improbable victories that helped an all-time great Australian side sustain its warfare.



McGrath's genius wasn't derived from his pin-like long legs that conspired his nickname Pigeon, and not from his lanky physique that hardly bordered on athletic either; McGrath's selling point was his metronome precision: tidy lines and lengths boringly hurled in an infinite loop outside off, rivaling an all-devouring bowling machine, until either the batsman's technique or his temperament yielded.



Born in Dubbo to Beverly and Kevin McGrath, Glenn Donald McGrath was spotted by Doug Walters at New South Wales. He eventually debuted at the age of 23, against New Zealand at Perth in 1993, after only eight First Class matches. A month later, he made his ODI debut against South Africa at the MCG. As soon as 1995, he graduated to become Australia's bowling leader, snaffling 17 wickets during their tour of West Indies. In the return tour by Courtney Walsh's men, McGrath followed up his performance by taking away the series honours in a 3-2 win.

 

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James Michael Anderson, OBE (born 30 July 1982), is an English international cricketer who plays for Lancashire County Cricket Club and the England cricket team. Anderson is the all-time leading wicket-taker among fast bowlers and holds the record of most wickets for England in both Test and One-Day International (ODI) cricket. He is the first fast bowler as well as the first English bowler, and the fourth overall, to pass 600 Test wickets.

Anderson was the first English bowler to reach 400, 500 and 600 wickets in Test matches. As of August 2020 he is ranked 8th in the ICC Test Bowling Rankings, having previously reached the top position at various times between 2016 and 2018.

James Anderson was a pupil at St Mary's and St Theodore's RC High School, Burnley. He played cricket at Burnley Cricket Club from a young age. His childhood dream was to be a cricketer, and at the age of 17, after a growth spurt, Anderson was one of the fastest bowlers in the Lancashire League. He stated that "I've always bowled seam, but when I was about 17 I don't know what it was but I just started bowling fast all of a sudden".

 

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You must be knowing that Bhuvneshwar Kumar is an Indian pacer who bowls right-arm medium-fast, working his magic mainly with swing. But did you know that he is the owner of a particular record? By having hit the timber to get his first wicket in all three formats of the game, Bhuvneshwar became the first player in cricket history to have his first wickets in all formats!

You would have seen him walk off the field injured in the Indian Premier League that just concluded, ending his campaign with Sunrisers Hyderabad rather early. Injuries have blighted Bhuvneshwar’s career in the recent years, forcing him in and out of the Indian Squad.

While in his element, however, Bhuvneshwar has played all three formats of the game for the country, making the ball do the talking and contributing with the bat as well. That was how he made his international debut in all formats late in 2012 and early 2013, impressing one and all with his line and length.

Buvneshwar first played for India in a T20 against Pakistan on December 25, 2012. He didn’t have to wait for long for his first international wicket as he had Nasir Jamshed bowled off the last ball of his very first over!

When he made his ODI debut few days later against the same opposition on December 30, his first wicket in the format came even quicker. For off his very first delivery, and the first in the match, Bhuvneshwar cleaned up Mohammad Hafeez.

His Test debut came in February 2013 against Australia, but he went wicketless in the format in the next Test match, he hit the stumps once again after David Warner got an inside edge.

With that, he became the first bowler ever to have bowled as his first dismissal in T20s, ODIs and Tests!

 

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Italy won the World Cup after beating France 5–3 in a penalty shoot-out following a 1–1 draw at the conclusion of extra time. The match had been surrounded mostly around France's Zinedine Zidane and Italy's Marco Materazzi: this was the last-ever game of the former for France, both were scorers in the final, and also embroiled in an incident at extra times that led to Zidane's headbutt on Materazzi. The incident was the subject of much analysis following the match. Italy's Andrea Pirlo was awarded the Man of the Match, and Zidane was awarded the Golden Ball as the player of the tournament.

The final served as a key match in the France–Italy football rivalry, coming after Italy were defeated by France in the UEFA Euro 2000 Final. Italy's victory was their first world title in 24 years, and their fourth overall, putting them one ahead of Germany and only one behind Brazil. The victory also led to Italy topping the FIFA World Rankings in February 2007 for the first time since November 1993.

It was an incident which followed both players ever since - both were fined by FIFA at the time and have not discussed it until only recently. In an interview this week, Materazzi spoke in detail for the first time about what happened: "Zidane's headbutt? I wasn't expecting it in that moment. I was lucky enough that the whole episode took me by suprise because if I had expected something like that to happen and had been ready for it, I'm sure both of us would have ended up being sent off," the former Inter Milan defender explained. 

That was the final straw for Zidane, who turned and headbutted Materrazi in the chest. After reviewing the incident, the ref sent him off. Zizou spoke about it for the first time in an interview for Téléfoot in 2017: ""I'm not proud of what I did. One of the first things I did was to apologise to all of the young players in front of everyone, to all of the coaches who try to ensure that football is not about something else, not that. But it forms part of my career, it is part of my life and part of things which may not be that serious but it's something which I have to accept that happened and take it on board".

 

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France playmaker Zinedine Zidane won the adidas Golden Ball voted for by journalists at the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany™.

Although his team ultimately failed in their bid to lift the Trophy, Les Bleus' No.10 won the vote for the best player to grace the world stage in Germany. Behind ‘Zizou' came Italy's defensive rock Fabio Cannavaro, with the Juventus defender's Azzurri team-mate Andrea Pirlo completing the podium.

In the Final against Italy, he opened the scoring with an audacious spot-kick. Despite his tireless prompting, however, Zidane was unable to pick up the second FIFA World Cup winner's medal of a glittering career and was sent from the field in extra time for butting Marco Materazzi in the chest.

The Golden Ball award is presented to the best player at each FIFA World Cup finals, with a shortlist drawn up by the FIFA technical committee and the winner voted for by representatives of the media. Those who finish as runners-up in the vote receive the Silver Ball and Bronze Ball awards as the second and third most outstanding players in the tournament respectively. The current award was introduced in the 1982 FIFA World Cup, sponsored by Adidas and France Football, though fifa.com also lists in their player articles as "golden ball winners" Kempes, Cruyff, Pelé, Bobby Charlton, Garrincha and Didi for 1978, 1974, 1970, 1966, 1962 and 1958 respectively. Barcelona is the only club whose players have won the Golden Ball a record 3 times (Johan Cruyff in 1974, Romário in 1994, Lionel Messi in 2014).

 

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Zinedine Zidane, byname Zizou, (born June 23, 1972, Marseille, France), French football (soccer) player who led his country to victories in the 1998 World Cup and the 2000 European Championship.

Zidane joined Real Madrid in 2001, and the following year the team won the Champions League title and the European Super Cup. The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) named Zidane World Player of the Year three times (1998, 2000, and 2003).

Zidane was also a success in international competition. He had an eventful 1998 World Cup, which was held in France for the first time. Zidane stomped on an opponent in the second game of the first round and was suspended for two contests. There was speculation that he would be kicked off the team, but he returned in the quarterfinal round. Zidane scored two goals in the final against Brazil, and France took the World Cup with a 3–0 victory. In 2000 Zidane was named player of the tournament after leading France to the European Championship.

 

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