
India wins 12 medals including 2 gold at FISU World University Games in Germany
Ankita Dhyani clinched a silver medal in the women's 3,000 m steeplechase. She clocked a strong timing behind Finland's Ilona Mononen (9:31.86), while Germany's Adia Budde secured bronze with 9:33.34.Ankita, who previously competed in the 5,000 m event at the Paris Olympics, made a successful switch to steeplechase late last year.BRONZE IN RACE WALK AND RELAYIndia earned a bronze medal in the women's 20 km race walk event with a team effort by Sejal Singh, Munita Prajapati, and Mansi Negi, clocking a combined 4:56:06 hours. Sejal finished 15th individually.Later in the day, the men's 4x100m relay team -- Lalu Prasad Bhoi, Animesh Kujur, Manikanta Hoblidhar, and Dondapati Mrutyum Jayaram -- clinched bronze with a time of 38.89 seconds, behind South Korea and South Africa.India shone in compound archery, collecting a gold in the mixed team event, gold and silver in individual events (Sahil Rajesh Jadhav and Parneet Kaur), and silver and bronze in team events.India secured its second-ever badminton medal at the Games with a bronze in the mixed team event, and its first-ever tennis medal through Vaishnavi Adkar's singles bronze, adding to a long gap since Nandan Bal's silver in 1979.-----Though this year's total was lower than the 2023 Chengdu Games, where India finished with 26 medals and 11 golds, the 2025 campaign still marked significant progress in new disciplines and athletics.- Ends
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Indian Express
21 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Hot air balloon rides to be launched in Delhi in 2 months
Soon, Delhiites will be able to enjoy hot air balloon rides in the national capital. The rides are set to be offered in two months at four locations — Yamuna Sports Complex, Commonwealth Games Sports Complex, Asita, and Baansera — as part of promoting eco-tourism and recreational activities, the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) stated on Thursday. DDA has awarded the contract for operating the hot air balloon rides to a private agency for an initial period of three years, which can be further extended up to nine years. A four-hour flying window will be permitted daily, with potential for extension based on demand or other requirements, DDA said in a statement. The rides will function on a revenue-sharing model, and ticket pricing will be subject to DDA's approval, it said. All proceeds from ticket sales will be credited to DDA's account, the agency said, adding that this system is aimed at ensuring transparency and proper financial tracking. Each site will offer the operator a 3,600-sqm area for operations. The initiative, developed under the guidance of Delhi Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena, is intended to provide residents and tourists with an aerial view of Delhi's natural and built landscape. DDA said the project complements its broader efforts focusing on the rejuvenation of the Yamuna riverbank. Among these are the Asita riverfront and the Baansera Bamboo Park at Sarai Kale Khan. Asita, once an encroached land, has been developed into a green stretch, while Baansera, earlier a dumping site for construction and demolition waste, now features over 30,000 bamboo plants, three water bodies, and a musical fountain. The Yamuna Sports Complex in Surajmal Vihar and the Commonwealth Games Sports Complex, built for the 2010 Games, are among the largest sports facilities developed by DDA in the city.


Mint
an hour ago
- Mint
Who are India's next generation of Badminton stars?
Lakshya Sen was twice in a position to grab a medal in badminton at the Paris 2024 Olympics. In the semi-final, he lost to Viktor Axelsen after seeming in control of the match early on. A win would have taken him to the final and a guaranteed medal. In the match for a bronze, Sen led his opponent by a game before losing the next two. Those defeats summed up 2024 for Indian badminton, as a year in which the country's premier badminton players appeared to have lost their lustre. There were no singles titles for any player—Sen has won only one title since the Olympics, the Syed Modi India International in December, and hasn't made it past any quarter-finals this year. 'He would have won more, but the competitive environment is not set for him. He is brilliant, but it's not his fault (for not winning more)," says Parupalli Kashyap, a former world No.6 who has now pivoted to coaching. 'His work ethic and attitude are great. He has pulled off some amazing matches in the past. But if you see now, his performances have dropped considerably." Sen follows a generation of badminton players who, under the tutelage of Pullela Gopi Chand achieved considerable success, turning India into a badminton powerhouse. In 2022, Indian men won the Thomas Cup team event for the first time in its 70-odd-year history, showcasing an all-round strength and depth. Saina Nehwal won an Olympic bronze medal in 2012 London, P. V. Sindhu got two, a silver in 2016 Rio de Janeiro and a bronze in 2020 (held in 2021) Tokyo, ranking as high as No.2. Kidambi Srikanth was once world No.1, a silver medallist in the 2021 World Championships while H.S. Prannoy, once world No.6, finished third in the 2023 World Championships. But that was in the past. After a long gap now, no Indian player—male or female—features in the top 10 rankings. Sen, at No.17, is the highest while Sindhu, 30, is at No.15, having slid out of the top 10 in October last year. Srikanth, 32, and Prannoy, 33, are in the 30s in ranking as well. All of them are dealing with issues of fitness, motivation and consistency as the rigour of the sport takes a toll. Indian badminton seems to be undergoing a transition, from a generation of players who were consistently in the top 10, won a host of titles and catalysed the sport to waiting for the next lot to make a mark. With the World Championships starting 25 August, coincidentally in Paris, the venue for last year's Olympics, the sport is looking at new beginnings. 'At this point of my career, each and every win matters," Prannoy told the Badminton World Federation (BWF) website after a first-round win in the China Open this month. 'The level of men's singles has gone really high, so winning each round is getting tougher. The average age in men's singles has become 22-23 all of a sudden; a lot of fresh faces, we don't know what their game is. So it's tough to be a veteran of this," added Prannoy, who has lost in the first or second round of all his 11 tournaments this year. Looking Ahead Ayush Shetty, 20, won the US Open, a BWF Super 300 category event, in June and is currently the second highest ranked Indian male. Earlier this week, Unnati Hooda, 17, beat Sindhu in the China Open. Vennala Kalagotla, 17, and Tanvi Sharma, 16, finished third in the Asian Junior Championships last Sunday in Indonesia. Malvika Bansod, 23, won a title at the Azerbaijan International last year, finished third at the US Open, and was runner-up at the Hylo Open in Germany. Anupama Upadhyaya, now 20, was a few years ago the world's top-ranked junior. These are just a few names of upcoming players, but it's also early days for them, competing in a bruising, physically taxing sport in which a Prannoy, 33, is considered a veteran. 'We are nimble-footed and have supple wrists, but this sport is tough for Indian bodies where few like Sindhu have lasted largely injury free," adds Kashyap. While there has been a substantial increase in the number of children taking to the sport over the last decades, along with the spread of infrastructure and support from parents, badminton remains an expensive sport and opportunities to succeed at the elite level is limited. Some of these challenges even prompted the national coach Gopi Chand to recently say that the sport should be pursued only by the wealthy, because it does not offer job security or a guaranteed success. In Guntur, where Vennala grew up, her father Kalagotla Srinivasa Reddy was keen that she pick up a sport. The choice was between tennis and badminton, but when Reddy went to the tennis courts, he got intimidated by the fancy cars parked outside. Badminton became an easier option, which the child soon fell in love with. 'My father was a ball badminton player with ambitions of participating in the Olympics," Vennala says, back home from Solo, Indonesia. 'But since ball badminton is not part of the Olympics, he could not, but was keen that my brother and I follow that Olympic dream." The bronze medal, which has got her a direct entry into the BWF World Junior Championships in October, is a reward for all the 'sacrifices, early morning sessions," she says, bringing in the motivation to do better. 'It's the start of something bigger," she says over the phone. Passing the Baton Kashyap believes that the sport is not being organised in a way to optimise results, with 'too many heads working for a cause that does not make sense". Top players train at different centres, often lacking in adequate sparring partners, which would help in raising their standards. There is no second string of players getting funded consistently, he adds, despite efforts of not-for profit agencies like Olympic Gold Quest, GoSports and Reliance Foundation, which supports Vennala, among others. The lockdown in 2020, 2021, also made a debilitating difference to continuity, according to Nikhil Kanetkar, who runs an eponymous coaching centre in Pune. 'Every day of training matters. Not being able to play for a year and more was difficult. It put us back. Maybe in other countries, they were holed up in their (training) centres. That perhaps gave them an advantage." 'For me as a coach, for example, I had to start from zero. We lost a generation of players," adds Kanetkar, who was Gopi Chand's contemporary as a player in the late 1990s and 2000s. He says that players like Nehwal, Srikanth and Sindhu raised the sport to such a high standard in the country that it's difficult to maintain that level seamlessly. 'We should have had a backup (of players) to them, four-five years ago maybe." According to him, players do not have the patience to stay in one coaching centre for longer, which affects their growth. 'One national centre, like in Guwahati (National Centre of Excellence), would probably make sense, but all top players have to be there together. The system has to gear to that, get the best coaches, how China does it," Kanetkar adds. Badminton in India is at a crossroad, but everyone agrees that with the depth of talent available, the transition will happen, even if it takes a little longer. 'What I learnt is to be happy, but to never get satisfied," says Vannala. Arun Janardhan is a Mumbai-based journalist who covers sports, business leaders and lifestyle. He posts @iArunJ.


Time of India
9 hours ago
- Time of India
Too much too young? Swimming's dilemma over 12-year-old schoolgirl
Swimming is a sport well used to talented teenagers, but Yu Zidi 's participation aged 12 at the world championships has sparked debate about how young is too young. The prodigious Chinese schoolgirl is not just making up the numbers at the event in Singapore this week. Explore courses from Top Institutes in Please select course: Select a Course Category Management Design Thinking Data Science Leadership Healthcare Others Data Science CXO MCA Operations Management Data Analytics Digital Marketing Finance healthcare others Project Management Artificial Intelligence MBA Degree Public Policy Cybersecurity PGDM Technology Product Management Skills you'll gain: Duration: 10 Months IIM Kozhikode CERT-IIMK GMPBE India Starts on undefined Get Details Skills you'll gain: Duration: 11 Months IIM Kozhikode CERT-IIMK General Management Programme India Starts on undefined Get Details Skills you'll gain: Duration: 9 Months IIM Calcutta CERT-IIMC APSPM India Starts on undefined Get Details Yu qualified for Monday's final of the 200m individual medley and came fourth, missing out on a remarkable medal by just 0.06sec in what is not considered her strongest event. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Orthopedic Knee Surgeon: Suffering From Pain After Age 50? Do This Every Morning Wellnee Undo The race was won by Canada's Summer McIntosh -- she competed at the Tokyo Olympics as a 14-year-old and last summer in Paris won three golds at age 17. Yu was at it again on Wednesday in Singapore, racing alongside comparative veteran McIntosh to reach the finals of the 200m butterfly. Live Events Yu, who turns 13 in October, will also race in the 400m medley later this week. The Chinese prodigy, who discovered swimming aged six as a way to cool off in China's roasting summers, has drawn historical comparisons to Inge Sorensen. At 12, the Dane was the youngest-ever winner of an Olympic swimming medal after her bronze at the Berlin Games of 1936. More recently, there was Bahrain's Alzain Tareq, who was 10 when she competed at the swimming world championships in Kazan, Russia, in 2015. Unlike Yu, however, she never came close to a medal. Asked this week if she was a "genius", Yu replied: "No, not really. It's all the result of hard training." Too early While Yu's performances have been impressive and could well yield a medal, not everyone thinks she should be competing in Singapore. Some in the sport have raised questions about the impact on Yu mentally and physically of high-level training and competing at an age when she is still developing as a person. Under current World Aquatics rules, the minimum age is 14 but younger swimmers can compete at the championships if -- like Yu -- they are fast enough. Christian Hansmann, sports director of German swimming, called her participation in Singapore "questionable". "Putting a girl of 12 in front of a world championship crowd of 5,000 spectators, with the high pressure from the media and the coaches, is far too early in my opinion," said Hansmann, who has children of a similar age. French swimmer Lilou Ressencourt admitted it "pisses me off to be beaten by a girl 10 years younger than me" and said she was surprised by how fast Yu is at such a young age. She too fears for Yu's physical and mental well-being. "I'm 22 and handling world championships, even French championships, can be difficult," Ressencourt told AFP. "I tell myself that at 12, you have a heavy responsibility... it's not normal at 12 to have that kind of pressure." Finding balance Yu's presence in Singapore could force a rethink of the rules at World Aquatics, the sport's governing body. Executive director Brent Nowicki admitted they had been surprised that someone as young as Yu had been fast enough to qualify. Nowicki said World Aquatics "feel quite good about where we are with our safeguarding approach in our sport", but admitted that Yu could force a re-evaluation of its rules. "She's great. I mean, there's a big future there for her. Hopefully there could be good things that could happen out of this, and it could be great," he said. But he added: "Obviously we have to make sure that that's what it is, right? We don't want to tip that balance and go the other way, and we have to be careful about that." Many other sports have wrestled with the same age issue. In 2022, ice skating's governing body voted to raise the minimum age for senior competition from 15 to 17, months after an Olympics drug scandal involving Russian teenager Kamila Valieva. Katarina Witt, who was 18 when she won Olympic skating gold at the 1984 Sarajevo Games for East Germany, said the change was "primarily protecting the female athletes from their sometimes over-ambitious managers".