Our very own wonder women

Rohit Mahajan

For India, the year’s biggest sports stars were women — two of them practitioners of ‘macho’ sports such as weightlifting and boxing. 

It was only 50 years ago that a woman, Kathrine Switzer, was physically attacked by an official of the Boston Marathon because she was breaking a rule — being a woman, she was not allowed to run the race. It was believed that women were not strong enough to run the marathon. The Olympics included women's marathon only in 1984. It was only in 2000 that the Olympics opened its doors to women weightlifters, to women wrestlers in 2004 and women boxers in 2012.

That's part of the history of women's struggle against man-made rules in sports in the West; in the much more conservative, patriarchal India, girls still don't easily get the permission to play sport. We've had a sprinkling of women sports stars for decades, but it's only in recent years that we've found top stars in 'macho' sports, and in greater numbers.

Stars of 2017

The biggest achievers for India in Olympics sports were mostly women — Saikhom Mirabai Chanu, PV Sindhu, Mary Kom, Saina Nehwal, Joshna Chinappa and Aditi Ashok. 

Mirabai Chanu, the petite 48-kg weightlifter from Manipur, had sunk into depression after last year's Olympics at Rio de Janeiro, where she was unable to perform a 'clean' lift and had a "did not finish" against her name. The 23 year old even thought of giving up the sport, but lifting weights is all she knows about. She did not go back home at all after the Olympics — she stuck to training in Patiala, working harder than ever before. In November, Mirabai struck gold at the World Weightlifting Championships in Anaheim in the US. She is only the second Indian world champion in weightlifting after another woman, Karnam Malleswari, who won her gold in 1995.

Sindhu had a fantastic year, though she's under intense scrutiny for losing two big finals this year — the World Championships final against Nozomi Okuhara and the World Dubai Superseries title match against Akane Yamaguchi. 

Her predecessor as India's top badminton player, Saina Nehwal, too had a very good year, with her second medal, a bronze, at the World Championships. Saina's second consecutive World Championships medal is testimony to her willpower and talent because she suffered a serious knee injury last year, for which she required surgery. 

Mary Kom has five World Championships gold and one Olympics bronze medal, so one more Asian Championship medal is not really a big deal for her; however, the gold she won in Ho Chi Minh in November was her first big medal in three years and showed that at age 35, and as a mother of three children, she's still got the ambition and ability to compete for and win the toughest medals. 

There were other women stars — Joshna Chinappa became the first Indian to win the Asian squash title, and also won a bronze with Dipika Pallikal in women's doubles at the World Championship. 

Golfer Aditi Ashok won one Ladies European Tour title in 2017, but she started in all five Majors. In her rookie year on the very tough Ladies PGA Tour, she made the cut in 14 of the 21 tournaments she played, and earned $162,143. It's a great start for the 19-year-old, and it could only get better from here on.

The women's hockey team won the Asia Cup in Japan by beating China 5-4. Before this tournament, India had never beaten China in the Asia Cup — but they did it twice in Japan, including 4-1 in the group stage. Over the last few decades, countries such as China, Japan and South Korea had become unbeatable for India — but there's an encouraging upsurge in Indian women's hockey right now.

There was one more very encouraging performance by a women's team — the Indian women's cricket team reached the final of the World Cup, going down to England in an exciting match. The best innings of the tournament was played by an Indian, Harmanpreet Kaur, who smashed 171 off only 115 balls in the semifinals against Australia.

Sportspersons build a nation's pride, but there are more concrete benefits — they can inspire all citizens to become fitter, which would decrease the burden on the nation's healthcare and medical resources. For the practitioners of sport, there are wealth and fame, self-confidence and self-sufficiency — women are partaking of these benefits in greater numbers than ever before, and that's just wonderful.

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FIFA World Cup in India

Despite Indian football team’s ranking falling to 171 in 2014, FIFA had India host the 2017 U-17 World Cup. India qualified for it as hosts but lost all their group games, scoring only one goal. These losses laid bare a stark reality — our team that had been training for two years for this tournament was not competitive even in the group stage. 

Kohli, Ashwin set records

Despite losing Champions Trophy, India had some reasons to cheer— they beat Australia, West Indies and Sri Lanka in Test series, rising to No. 1 in the international rankings. In individual records, R Ashwin became the quickest to reach 300 Test wickets (54 Tests), Virat Kohli scored three 200s in Tests, and Rohit Sharma smashed a third ODI 200.

The shuttle boys

K. Srikanth won four Superseries titles in 2017, only the fifth man to win so many in one year, becoming the world No. 2 in the process. Two other Indians are in the world top 20 — HS Prannoy (No. 10) and B Sai Praneeth (N. 16). Praneeth was the second Indian to win a Superseries title this year, while Prannoy beat top stars to win the US Open title.

Courting glory

PV Sindhu had a fantastic year, though she’s under intense scrutiny right now for losing two big finals this year — the very thrilling World Championships final against Nozomi Okuhara and the World Dubai Superseries title match against Akane Yamaguchi. She’s only 22 and the next three years, leading up to the Tokyo Olympics, should see greater performances from her.

Raising the stick

The men’s hockey team had yet another coach — Sjoerd Marijne, who had been coaching the women’s team, was suddenly, unexpectedly handed the men’s team’s reins after Roelant Oltmans was sacked in September. Marijne didn’t have time left in the year, and India did win the Asia Cup in Dhaka; the big test for him, though, was the Hockey World League final. India played strangely in the tournament, mixing brilliance with mediocrity — they were world-class one day, scaring Australia before a 1-1 draw, then losing 0-2 to Germany with a completely ineffectual, lethargic game. They ended up last in the four-team group, but the quirky format of the tournament makes the league stage irrelevant because all eight teams in the tournament qualify for the knockouts — and India produced top hockey to knock out Belgium, the top team in the other group, in the quarterfinals. India then lost to Argentina in the semifinals before beating Germany, hit by a strange illness to their players, 2-1 to take bronze. 

Harendra Singh, given the charge of the women’s team in September, did manage to fire up the girls and they beat China twice in the Asia Cup, the second time in the final, to win the tournament for the first time since 2004.

Aces for all times

It was almost as if this was 2006 — Roger Federer won the Australian Open and Wimbledon, Rafael Nadal won the French Open and US Open, and ended up as the world No. 1. Coming back into the sport after serious injuries, the two greatest players of all time turned back the clock with unbelievable performances through the year. They also benefited from the prolonged loss of form and then absences of injury-hit Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray and Stan Wawrinka. The year 2018 should see some more vintage performances from these five older masters, though there is an exciting bunch on the horizon, led by Alexander Zverev and including Nick Kyrgios, Dominic Thiem, Andrey Rublev and Karen Khachanov. In between, there’s the ‘lost generation’ that includes potential Grand Slam winners such as Grigor Dimitrov, Milos Raonic and Marin Cilic. 

Serena Williams played only one Grand Slam, the Australian Open, but that was enough to earn her endless headlines for the year — she became the most successful player, male or female, in the open era, winning her 23rd Grand Slam title. She missed most of the tennis season as she became a mother in September and got married in November. She’d have great motivation in her comeback next year — she needs two titles to eclipse the all-time Grand Slam record of 24 titles, held by Margaret Court.

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In the news

The BCCI clean-up

The SC kicked out the incumbent BCCI chief Anurag Thakur and secretary Ajay Shirke for stalling the Lodha panel reforms and appointed a four-member CoA, headed by former CAG Vinod Rai, to run the apex body. It was hoped to be a year of big change in the BCCI. Yet, the former officials, who still control the state bodies directly or indirectly, have been openly defiant. Sadly, even the SC might find it difficult to remove these entrenched, power-hungry officials.

Sushil returns to ring

Just two minutes of wrestling made Sushil Kumar the national champion on his comeback. It was a strange comeback as only two men fought him in the Nationals. The walkovers, a sign of reverence for him, raised questions over his abilities. He won gold at the Commonwealth Championships, where Parveen Rana did fight him but lost. The second bout with Rana in the CWG trials in Delhi led to an ugly fight among their supporters.

Coached in controversy

The exit of India team coach Anil Kumble and Ravi Shastri’s return made news. India had done well under Kumble and there was no reason to not renew his contract. But in 2015 Kumble had been selected over Shastri, who had a great rapport with Virat Kohli. Other players, too, didn't like like Kumble's authoritative. He was also disliked by BCCI officials because of his past activism and attempts at salary negotiations before the IPL.

The last sprint

Usain Bolt, the greatest sprinter of all time, bade an inglorious farewell. He had ruled the sprints for close to a decade, but his final race ended with him falling down after an injury in the 4x100 relays in the London World Championships. He was in pain but refused to get into a wheelchair, hobbled up and walked across the finish line with the help of  teammates. In the individual 100m race, too, he had been beaten to a bronze.