India’s Women Athletes in 2015

2015 was a great year for India’s Women Athletes, as they valued and ran into uncharted territories, secured Olympic Qualifications, and raked in the trophies. While it was a stupendous year for Sania Mirza, one in which she won a stellar nine titles with Martina Hingis, including two Grand Slams, and reached the top of the doubles world rankings, there were other Indian women too who made 2015 a year to remember. In their respective disciplines, these athletes broke new ground, took the world by surprise, and gave us something to look forward to in 2016, the year of the Olympics.

Lalita Babar: The daughter of a farmer, Babar broke the national steeplechase record thrice this year. The icing on the cake was becoming the first Indian to qualify for the final of a track event at the World Championships. For the Rio Olympics starting in August, Babar has two tickets – for the steeplechase and marathon.

Hockey Team: Indian Women Hockey Team was officially confirmed as participants for the 2016 Rio Olympics. For the Indian Women Hockey Team which has played at the Olympics only once before this, in 1980, on invitation, this is a watershed moment. Full of girls from small towns and whose popularity seems restricted to Shah Rukh Khan’s 2007 film ‘Chak De! India’, this is a telling goal scored just in time.

Dipika Pallikal: Pallikal began the year brightly, winning the Winnipeg Winter Club Open in February, but hit plenty of roadblocks midway through the season. Having failed to get past the first round in three previous events, Pallikal surged into the quarter-final of the prestigious US Open in October with a hard fought victory over World No. 5 Alison Waters. Pallikal also spoke openly about gender bias and refused to participate in the National Games since the prize money for male and female winners wasn’t the same.

PV Sindhu: She won Macau Open in February 2015 and beat World No. 1 Carolina Marin in Denmark Open.

Deepika Kumari: She went into the London Olympics in 2012 as the World No. 1 and made a first round exit. After two years, she overcame the shadow of failure & led the women recurve team to silver at the World Championships in Copenhagen, Denmark, booking them a ticket for Rio.

Apurvi Chandela: Part of the generation that was inspired by Abhinav Bindra’s gold at Beijing 2008, she has her sight set on the ultimate prize. She took the first step towards it by bagging bronze at the Changwon World Cup in April and qualifying for the Rio Olympics in the 10m air rifle event. She is the only shooter besides Jitu Rai to have booked a berth. She shot an impressive 206.9 to win Silver at the Munich World Cup in September.

Dipa Karmakar: Karmakar achieved the massive feat of becoming the first Indian to make it to the final of an event at the World Gymnastics Championships. She finished fifth in the final of the vault event, which means her chances of getting a wild card to compete in the Rio Olympics are pretty high.

Saina Nehwal: Last year, she had become the first Non-Chinese player to win the China Open Superseries. 2015 was the sting back in Nehwal game as she became the World No. 1 singles player, an astonishing feat in a sport dominated by the Chinese. Though Saina Nehwal had a few significant firsts to her name – like a world championship and an All England medal – the big titles eluded her. Expectations are high from her in 2016 Rio Olympics.