Sports - Current Affairs for September, 2015

MC Mary Kom announced the decision to quit after the 2016 Rio Olympics. Mary Kom was born in 1983 in Manipur. She is a 5 time World Amateur Boxing Champion.The first Indian woman boxer to get a Gold Medal in the Asian Games 2014 in Incheon, South Korea, she is also a bronze medalist from the 2012 Summer Olympics. Mary Kom is supported by Olympic quest as well.

One of the most advanced bowlers, ex England cricketer Frank Tyson has passed away at Australia at the age of 85. He was nicknamed Typhoon and had emigrated to Australia during the 1960s. He is best known for helping England to win the 1954-1955 Ashes. He was also declared a Wisden Leading Cricketer in the World in 1955 on account of this victory. Born in 1930, he held a degree in English literature from the University of Durham.

Ex Real Madrid and Spain midfielder Ignacio Zoco, who dominated La Liga in the 1960s and the Spanish side that won the 1964 European Championship, died on 28th September aged 76. He spent 12 years with Real and made 434 competitive appearances. He helped the club to win 1 European Cup, 7 La Liga titles and 2 Spanish cups. Zoco spent 12 seasons with Real, making 434 competitive appearances and helping the club win one European Cup, seven La Liga titles and two Spanish Cups. He played a total of 25 times for Spain during the 1960s.

Indian billiards player Pankaj Advani won the IBSF World Billiards Championship to snare his 14th world title. The 30 year old player beat Singapore’s Peter Gilchrist by 1168 points. Known as Bengaluru’s Golden Boy, he is in good form. In the under 21 event, S. Srikrishna defeated Ishpreet Chadha to win the crown. India’s Arantxa Sanchis finished at the top prevailing over fellow India R. Umadevi at the women’s event. After beating England’s Mike Russell in the final of the 2012 edition of the Time format, Advani went on to win twin titles in both Point and Time formats in 2014.

Reigning World Number 1 champions Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis have won their sixth title of the year at the Guangzhou Open on 27th September 2015. The top seeded players beat Xu Shilin and You Xiaodi 6-3, 6-1 in the final to win their second WTA title in a row. They did not drop a single set on their way to the title. This is Mirza’s seventh title in 2015 and her sixth with Hingis. Sania and Hingis have now won six of 13 events they have played since March -- Indian Wells, Miami, Charleston, Wimbledon, the US Open and Guangzhou. They have an amazing 42-7 win-loss record together.

Second edition of the Indian Badminton League (IBL) is all set to roll out with the Badminton Association of India (BAI) the first edition of which was held in collaboration with commercial partners Sporty Solutionz in 2013. The Indian body now has taken the onus on themselves to conduct the tournament after severing its association with the Sports management company.

The league will retain its six franchises format represented by the Indian cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Lucknow with talks on to replace Pune with Chennai.

World Anti Doping Agency/WADA and General Administration of Sport of China signed MoU on Performance Enhancing drugs on 22nd September 2015. MoU will enhance cooperation between WADA and Chinese authorities.  Agreement will eliminate supply and manufacture of raw materials and supply of PEDs. Anti doping authorities worldwide will use the information to investigate anti doping rule violations under World Anti Doping Code. GASC will also develop links with WADA to achieve the same as will World Customers Organisation.  MoU follows DEA operation Cyber Juice on steroid and PED operation where major substances originated from Chinese labs.

Abdul Bari Siddiqui. senior RJD leader was on 24th September 2015, elected president of Bihar Cricket Association, chosen in a process directed by SC. BCA elections were held in August 2015 . Siddiqui is currently chairman of state Badminton Association. Former president Vinod Kumar lost the elections. Other appointments as per the election include:  
- Working President of the cricketing body: International umpire Laliteshwar Prasad Verma
- General Secretary: Ravi Shankar Prasad
- Treasurer: Ram Kumar
- 5 Vice Presidents: Sunil kumar Singh, Gopal Bohra, Anand Kumar, S Mumtazuddin and N K Jamuar

Indian Wushu team secured 12 medals-one gold, four silver and seven bronze medals- at 5th International Pars Wushu Cup held Tehran. India’s L. Budhachandra Singh won the gold medal after beating Masod Ansari of Iran in the final of the 56 kg category. Mukesh Choudhary and Rajani Deori fetched silvers for the country. The previous edition was held in Zenjan Iram and India had won 2 silver and 3 bronze medals here. Wushu is a Chinese martial arts contact and exhibition sports and IWUF/ International Sushi Foundation organises it.

Manpreet Kaur broke the national record for women’s shot put at the 55th national Open Athletics Championships earning a berth in the Rio Olympics. The 25 year old sportswoman from Ablana threw the shot put to a distance of 17.96m on her second attempt in the final, which was enough to achieve the entry standard for the Rio Games. And in doing so, she rewrote a long-standing national record, set by Harbans Kaur way back in 1997.

Kalarippayattu sport is promoted by IKF in India. This is a martial art sports performed in Kerala and TN. Kalari is derived from Sangam literature. It means combat arena and battlefield. This is considered one of the oldest combat arts dating back to 2rd century BC to 2nd century AD.

Djokovic won 6-4, 5-7, 6-4, 6-4 against Roger Federer, it being the Serb’s third major title of the year and 10th of his career. Djokovic has reached 16 of the last 21 majors, winning four of the last six.Conversely Federer dropped a third consecutive major final to Djokovic, having lost in the Wimbledon final in 2014 and again this year.

Narsingh Pancham Yadav bagged a bronze medal at the Men’s 74 freestyle category securing a berth for the 2016 Rio Games. He was the only Indian to win a medal at the tournament. Double Olympic medallist Sushil Kumar has been absent for a year and Narsingh has now attained the change to represent India in the 74 kg division. In his semifinal bout, Narsingh went down to Unurbat Purevjav of Mongolia For the bronze medal play-off, he got his act together to outplay Zelimkhan Khadjiev of France 12-8 to make it to the podium.

Sania Mirza claimed her second Grand Slam title at the US open by beating fourth seeds Casey Dellacqua and Yaroslavl Shvedova 6-3, 6-3. Earlier victories for the Hingis-Mirza pair included Wimbledon. Martina Hingis finished the year with 2 Grand Slams in partnership with Sania and 3 with Laender Paes.

Flavia Pennetta won her maiden Grand Slam title at the US Open. The 26th seeded player won 7-6, 7-4, 6-2 to become the second Italian to win a tennis major tournament. The 33 year old player from Brindisi beat fellow Italian player Roberta Vinci and announced her retirement following the victory.

Chinese badminton legend Lin Dan has won the men’s singles title, prevailing over Viktor Axelsen of Denmark. Lin has won the Olympic medal 2 times and the world championship 5 times. He defeated the 21-year-old Dane 21-19, 16-21, 21-19. He looks to break the record of a third title at the 2016 Rio Olympics for which he has qualified.

Gopichand’s daughter Gayatri has created a new national record as the youngest shuttler to represent the nation in a prestigious tournament. She will represent India in the Asian Youth Badminton Championship held from October 7 to 11 in Indonesia. She won the U-13, U-15 singles and doubles title recently. Gayatri will represent India in the U-15 and U-17 singles and U-17 doubles with partner Vaishnavi Reddy.

3 member adhoc committee will not only oversee working of BFI, it will also conduct fresh elections to bring integration into the basketball scenario in India. Apart from CEO of Indian Volleyball Federation, K. Murugan who is heading the committee, its other two members are Anandeshwar Pandey and Kuldip Vats. BFI has separated into two sets of office bearers 9 months ago and the committee aims to resolve this issue.

Lander Paes has created history by winning the US Open Mixed Doubles title with Swiss partner Martina Hingis. The 42 year old Paes has won 9 Grand Slam Mixed Doubles titles as against 8 by Bhupathi.

Hingis and Paes have become the first mixed doubles team since 1969 to win 3 Grand Slam mixed double titles in the same year. This was the 17th Grand Slam title for Paes and the 19th for Hingis.

Record medals and titles held by Laender Paes include Olympic bronze medal in 1996, 1 singles and 55 doubles titles and 9 mixed doubles titles. Paes has won the Australian Open 2015 mixed doubles title as well.

Australian wicketkeeper Brad Haddin announced he is retiring from first class cricket on 9th September. He follows Shane Watson, Chris Rogers and Michael Clarke in leaving the Tests following the recent Ashes Series defeat. The 37 year old wicketkeeper retired from ODI cricket following Australia’s World Cup victory earlier in the year. He has kept wickets in 66 Tests, scoring 3,266 runs at an average of 32.98 and taking 262 catches with eight stumpings. Born October 23(1977) in Cowra, Australia, Bradley Hames Haddin has been part of the Australia National Cricket team for Test matches since 2009. The wicket keeper and batman is right handed and his last test was on 12th July versus England. Haddin’s last ODI was on 29th March versus New Zealand. He debuted in ODI on 30th January 2001 in Australia’s match against Zimbabwe. His T20 debut was in 2006 against S. Africa and his last T20 match was placed with Pakistan on 5th October 2014. He was also part of the following domestic teams: ACT Comets, New South Wales, KKR. He is currently a member of the Sydney Sixers.

On 7th September, 2015 Anirban Lahiri became the first Indian golfer to qualify for Presidents Cup based on his performance in 2015 Duetsche Bank Championship. He will take part as an International Team member in the 2015 championship. The event will be held at Incheon. S. Korea on 2-4 October 2015 . He is of the top 10 international players to qualify for official world gold ranking.

Wayne Rooney became the first Englishman to score 50 international goals, breaking the previous record of Sir Bobby Charlton who scored 49 in 106 caps. With this, Rooney becomes the leading goalscorer of England. Rooney has broken the record before 30 years of age which is a remarkable feat. He will be awarded the Golden Boot by Charlton for attaining this record.