FROM THE SIDELINES

Hari Chand, India’s finest long-distance runner, was two-time Olympian and won double gold at 1978 Bangkok Asian Games. Born in rural Punjab, Hari Chand’s father Jaggu Ram wanted him to become a wrestler. But Hari, who as a boy loved to chase rabbit across the village fields, turned out to …

The Tokyo Olympics will always remain a huge landmark in the history of Indian sports as this was India’s most successful Olympic campaign with 7 medals – 2 silver, 4 bronze, and one historic gold of Neeraj Chopra.  The gold medal of Neeraj Chopra that came with a throw of …

The Olympic motto now has the word ‘Together’ added after ‘Faster, Higher, Stronger’ in response to the COVID-19 crisis. ‘Citius, Altius, Fortius’,- the original motto of the Olympics was adopted by the founder of the modern Games Pierre De Coubertin in 1894 as he wanted a slogan that expressed excellence …

Sometimes regarded as one of the greatest athletes ever to have lived, ‘Babe’ Didrikson Zaharias, byname of Mildred Ella Zaharias, holds more records and medals than any other 20th-century athlete. Mildred Ella Didrikson achieved particular success in Basketball, Baseball and Track and Field. However, she is most widely known because …

The Olympic organisers have announced that the 2020 Tokyo Olympics will be held in the absence of any spectators in the host city of Tokyo, with resurgence in the number of coronavirus cases that have forced Japan to declare a “State of Emergency” in the capital, for the entire duration …

The Olympic Refugee Team will participate in the Tokyo Olympics 2020 as a symbol of hope for every refugee around the planet. Over the past ten years the refugee population around the world has increased by more than two times. The number of people who have been forcibly displaced all …

Owing to the Coronavirus crisis, the selected athletes for the Olympics are facing a real challenge to remain both physically and mentally fit. Sportsavour got in touch with Mreenal Chakraborty, the Master Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming and Mental Toughness Trainer, to get his take on the whole situation. The Olympic …

The extremely popular and historically important Olympic Torch Relay has seen many alterations and exemptions in 2020 Tokyo Olympics due to COVID pandemic; but the ever-burning flame eternally glows to represent a tale of happiness, hope and humanity.        History tells us how Prometheus stole fire from the gods to …

Sir Peter Snell, regarded as New Zealand’s greatest athlete and world’s one of the most successful middle-distance runners, died in Dallas at the age of 80. His death was sudden, as revealed by his wife Miki Snell. But the cause of his death can be regarded as his prolonged heart …

World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) banned the Russian Athletics Federation from all major sporting events, which includes the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, 2021 World Championships and 2022 FIFA World Cup. WADA’s executive committee, meeting in Lausanne, decided that the sporting powerhouse be handed the four-year suspension after accusing Moscow of falsifying laboratory …