A Year of Glory: India’s Most Memorable Sports Moments

15 August-Kolkata, India: From chess to cricket to football, India has achieved everything in the world of sports this year and the previous year. Ahead of celebrating the nation’s 79th Independence Day, let us reflect on the top five iconic moments by famous sports personalities and teams that made the country proud and brought immense happiness.

Historic Perfomance in the Olympics

In the 2024 Summer Paralympics, India won a total of 29 medals with 7 gold, 9 silver and 13 bronze. These performances also marked the nation’s record-breaking achievement in the history of the Paralympics.

India won six medals at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, including five bronze and one silver. Manu Bhaker became the first Indian shooter to win two medals in the same event, and Neeraj Chorpa took home a silver in the javelin throw.

India’s Grand ICC Champions Trophy win

The Rohit Sharma led- Indian cricket team also made history and won a record breaking 3 times ICC Champions Trophy 2025 win against the Kiwis in the month of February. India easily defeated Bangladesh, Pakistan, and New Zealand in the tournament’s group stage then defeated Australia in the semi-final to advance to the final.

India’s neighbour and rivals, Pakistan, also hosted the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 along with the United Arab Emirates(UAE). Due to security issues, the Indian cricket team didn’t travel there and played all of their matches in the UAE, along with the final.

India won the finals against a dominant New Zealand side by 4 wickets to take the trophy back home.

Chess Champions

In December 2024, D Gukesh defeated China’s Ding Liren in the 2024 FIDE World Championship in Singapore, making history as the youngest-ever World Chess Champion at the age of 18. After the legendary Viswanathan Anand, Gukesh became the second World Chess champion from India.

But India’s dominance started a few months earlier, before Gukesh, as Indian’s both men’s and women’s chess teams secured gold medals at the 45th FIDE Chess Olympiad in Budapest, Hungary, marking the nation’s first-ever grand win at the tournament.

But the dominance didn’t stop there; recently, 19-year-old Divya Deshmukh also became a young chess Grandmaster after she won the 2025 FIDE Women’s World Cup.

Neeraj Chopra’s brilliant 90m throw

In the month of May 2025, Indian javelin thrower and silver medalist Neeraj Chopra made a historic landmark of 90m throw in the Doha Diamond League. That marked the conclusion of his protracted wait to reach the 90-meter mark. He became the 28th athelete to reach the milestone since 1986.

Indian Women Football qualifies for AFC Asian Cup

The Indian women’s football team also qualified for the 2026 AFC Asian Cup by securing a narrow win over Thailand by 2-1 in Chiang Mai on 5th July 2025. This was a grand achievement for Indian women’s football as they not only secured the spot but also topped the group rankings with 12 points from 4 games.

India was forced to withdraw from the senior AFC Women’s Asian Cup in 2022 because of a COVID outbreak in their camp.

Therefore, these are only five of the main sports in which India has achieved significant progress in the last 12 months. However, these are not the only sports in which Indian athletes thrive. The trajectory of accomplishments is only going to become better as India moves closer to becoming a major sporting force in the world.