Sports - Current Affairs for July, 2015

Nairo Quintana and Alejandro Valverde secured the second and third position respectively.

Vinesh (48kg), Lalita Sehrawat (55kg) and Anita (63kg) put up impressive shows as they won all their bouts in their respective weight categories, while Sakshi Malik lost just one fight in 58kg division to help the eight-member team bag a silver medal at the July 23-26 event. The Kazakhstan tour is expected to help the Indian eves put up a good show at the World Championship, to be held in Las Vegas, USA from September 7-12, which will also be the first qualification event for Rio Olympics 2016.

He replaces Paul van Ass, who was unceremoniously sacked after a bitter spat with Hockey India President Narinder Batra. The 61-year-old Dutchman, who has been associated with Indian hockey for close to three years now, will be at the helm of affairs at least till next year's Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. The decision to appoint Oltmans was taken at a meeting between Sports Authority of India's Director General Injeti Srinivas and Batra.

Olympic champion and world record holder Usain Bolt has blasted out a World Championship warning with a victory in the 100-metres race at the London Diamond League meeting. The Jamaican sprinter won in 9.87 seconds, the same time he had set in winning his heat earlier at the London Olympic Stadium.

A five-wicket win over Namibia at the ICC qualifying event saw the Gulf minnows reach their first major international tournament. Victory also saw the ICC grant Oman a full T-20 status. The 16 teams who will compete in the final phase of the World T-20 are the 10 Test sides, plus qualifiers Scotland, Ireland, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Afghanistan and Oman.

Other two prominent IPL players -- Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan -- who were on bail, like Sreesanth, were also discharged in the case. The three cricketers were representing IPL team Rajasthan Royals when the scandal broke. They were arrested in May 2013 for alleged spot fixing in some matches of IPL 6. However the court had granted bail to Sreesanth, and various others accused for lack of evidence against them.

Shubham Jaglan from Delhi won the IJGA World Stars of Junior Golf event in Las Vegas on 23 July 2015 and just 5-days back he had pulled off a one-stroke win at the Junior World Golf Championships in California.

Amitoj Chhabra lifted a total of 1,383 pounds in Las Vegas to win the junior title earlier this month. Son of a Punjabi father and a Nepali mother, Chhabra squatted 485 pounds, bench pressed 325 and dead-lifted 573. He has added 100 pounds to his dead-lift in the past year. Chhabra began powerlifting in December 2013 and started competing in May 2014.

Bengaluru, Chennai, Dharamsala, Mohali, Mumbai, Nagpur and New Delhi will be the other venues along with Kolkata, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced on 21st July’15.

The Youth Delphic Games are held at every four years and invites participants of the age group of 15 to 25 years.

The outspoken Dutchman says he was conveyed that his services were no longer required. Van Ass told PTI from The Netherlands that he was fired one week after the Hockey World League Semi-finals in Antwerp, Belgium. He, however clarified that he is yet to get official confirmation. Hockey India has outrightly denied that Van Ass has been sacked and said that he had not reported for his duty on the stipulated date.

FIFA will hold a special election on February 26 to replace President Sepp Blatter, football's scandal-tainted world body said as French football great Michel Platini moved closer to launching a campaign.

BCCI has decided to change the format of the Deodhar Trophy Inter-zonal one day tournament making it into a three-team affair from current five zones vying for top spot. The BCCI decided to implement the suggestions given by the Anil Kumble-led technical committee where in the Deodhar Trophy will feature four 50-overs matches across five days between 24th January to 28th January. Just like Challenger series, the Vijay Hazare Trophy champions will be one of the teams. It will compete with two other teams which will be selected by the national selectors from the performance of Vijay Hazare Trophy.

She is the captain of Indian Women’s cricket team. She reached the record after her unbeaten 81 runs in the match against New Zealand where India was chasing a target of 220 runs. She also received the Arjuna Award in 2003 and the Padma Shri in 2015.

As the championship has been scrapped, the 2015 CLT20, scheduled for September and October, will not go ahead as planned. The GC consists of representatives of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), Cricket South Africa (CSA) and Cricket Australia (CA). CLT20 is an annual international Twenty20 cricket competition played between the top domestic teams from major cricketing nations and was launched in 2008 with the first edition held in October 2009.

United States lifted the FIFA Women's World Cup for the third time. US defeated Japan in the finals.

Carlos Chavez is also the treasurer of the South American Football Confederation, Conmebol. He is accused of alleged corruption in the management of resources. Bolivia began investigating its football federation after a major corruption scandal broke out involving the sport's world governing body FIFA.

India retained the title defeating Sri Lanka in the final held in Bengaluru. The top three teams were India (gold), Sri Lanka (silver) and Nepal (bronze).

World University Games was held in Gwangzhou, Korea from 3 July to 14 July 2015. Men’s compound team of India comprising Gurwinder Singh, Kanwalpreet Singh and and Aman were unavailable at the start of the match against Italy at 10am local time in Gwangju and as per the World Archery rules the game was forfeited.

Novak Djokovic won the third Wimbledon title by defeating Roger Federer.

Leander Paes clinched his 16th Grand Slam trophy, winning the mixed doubles event of the Wimbledon Championship with legendary Martina Hingis by defeating Alexander Peya and Timea Babos.

Youngster Sumit Nagal entered the history books as only sixth Indian to win a Grand Slam junior title after winning the boys doubles trophy at the Wimbledon championships with partner Nam Hoang Ly.

In the final in London on 11th July’15, Serena Williams defeated 21-year old Garbine Muguruza of Spain.

South African bowler Kagiso Rabada achieved this feat against Bangladesh. Bangladesh spinner Taijul Islam was the first debutant to take an ODI hat-trick. He achieved the feat in 2014.

The 37-year-old Sangakkara wanted to quit all formats after the World Cup earlier this year but agreed to stay on to play four home tests - two against Pakistan and two against India.

Sania Mirza created history by becoming the first female player from the country to win a woman’s doubles Grand Slam trophy as she clinched the Wimbledon title with Swiss partner Martina Hingis, in London. The duos defeated Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina of Russian team in a final match.

Indian shot-putter Inderjit Singh created history to become the first Indian to win a gold medal at the World University Games. In the last edition of the games in 2013 in Russia had won silver medal in the shot put event.

India has dropped a whopping 15 places to languish at the 156th position in the latest FIFA rankings. India went down in the rankings following two consecutive defeats in the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifiers against Oman and Guam last month.

Mayweather had failed to meet the deadline for paying the 200,000 dollar sanctioning fee required by the WBO after he took the belt 2ndMay in Las Vegas in the richest fight of all time, earning a reported 220 million dollars. WBO rules require boxers to pay 3 percent of their purse to fight for a world title up to a maximum of 200,000 dollars. The rules also prohibit WBO champions to hold any belts in any other weight divisions. Mayweather is currently also the WBC and WBA champion at junior middleweight (154 lbs), as well as at welterweight (147 lbs).

On 14th July’15, Star-studded Chennai Super Kings, two-time champions in the IPL, and Rajasthan Royals were suspended from the cricket league for two years for the betting activities of their key officials Gurunath Meiyappan and Raj Kundra during the 2013 season. Meiyappan, the former Team Principal of CSK, and Kundra, co-owner of the Rajasthan Royals, were suspended for life for indulging in betting and bringing the IPL and the game into disrepute.

Hiken Shah was found guilty of breaching BCCI's Anti-Corruption Code for participants. he BCCI stated that Hiken Shah made a corrupt approach to one of his colleagues from first-class cricket, who is also a member of one of the IPL teams. The approached player immediately informed the incident to his franchise team. The franchise team followed the process of informing the incident to the Anti-Corruption Unit of the BCCI.

The top-seeded Indo-Swiss pair blew away the challenge of Casey Dellacqua and Darija Jurak in the final match. Sania is also first female player from the country to win Grand Slam tournaments. It is Sania's third successive title win with Hingis and they have not lost as a single match since joining forces in March. Before Sania, only Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhuapthi had achieved the top rank when they dominated men's doubles circuit in the last 90s.

In the final match, New Zealand defeated Australia.

India produced a spirited performance to beat Korea in the penalty shoot-out to finish a creditable third in the 24th Sultan Azlan Shah Cup hockey tournament. With this India won the Bronze Medal.

The 31-year-old won the country's first Olympic men's athletics gold in the 110m hurdles in Athens in 2004 and added a world title in 2007. He has been affected by an Achilles problem ever since it caused him to pull out of his first heat at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Gujarat beat Punjab in the final held on 7th Apr’15 in Bhubaneswar.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the PCI's executive committee in Bengaluru. It has been alleged that the participants were accommodated in unfurnished flats with unhygienic facilities. The Paralympic Committee of India has constituted a three-member inquiry committee to investigate the matter. Mr Tomar denied the charges and stated that the organisational committee headed by Mr Satyanarayan, the Director of Competition, was fully responsible for the event along with the Uttar Pradesh Paralympic Association.

The eight teams will be involved in an intense battle in the 47 day long tournament. Overall, 60 matches are to be played in the tournament. The Final is slated to be played at the Eden Gardens, Kolkata, on May 24.

He defeated Andy Murray in the finals. It was Djokovic’s fifth Miami trophy.

The top-seeded Indo-Swiss pair defeated the second placed Russian duo of Elena Vesnina and Ekaterina Makarova.

In the event held at Sochi, Russia, both the players won the medal by virtue of making it to the semifinals. Harika had lost to the eventual winner Mariya Muzychuk of Ukraine in the semifinals. Harika got 20,000 US Dollars for the Bronze medal finish.

World number one Serena Williams lifted the Miami Open title for the eighth time. She defeated Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain. This was Serena's 66th Singles trophy. She is sixth in the overall rankings, the first in the list being Martina Navratilova with 167 titles.

It is the highest cricketing honour of New Zealand that was presented to him during the New Zealand Cricket (NZC) Awards presentation ceremony held in New Zealand’s capital Auckland.

He quit the position after being denied the honour of presenting the World Cup winners' trophy. On 1st Apr’15 the ICC confirmed that Mr. Mustafa Kamal has tendered his resignation as the ICC President with immediate effect.