National Sports Day: Neeraj Chopra, D Gukesh and Indian football team feature in highlights of past year

On National Sports Day, it is only but natural to reflect on the year gone by. The period of August 30, 2024 to August 29, 2025 has witnessed incredible moments that have made their mark in India's rich sporting history - new world champions, legends transcending their sport, underdogs defeating the system and more.

Here are some of the very best moments from 2024-25 in Indian sports:

Paralympic perfection in Paris

If India's campaign at the Paralympics 2024 had to described in one or two words, then they would have to be 'record-breaking'. 29 medals, including seven gold medals, and finishing among the top 20 countries on the table. The highest tally Indian athletes ever recorded at a Paralympic Games.

The record-breaking Games were also remembered for one particular day. September 2, 2024. This was an extraordinary Monday where in the space of less than 12 hours, India won eight medals. In just one day, India had matched their entire Paralympic medals tally between 1988-2016 and had won more medals than they had ever won at a single Olympics. It was arguably one of the greatest days in Indian sporting history.

The likes of Avani Lekhara, Sumit Antil, Harvinder Singh, Navdeep Singh, Thulasimathi Murugesan (and more) wrote their names into history, never to be forgotten.

-- Anish Anand

Dommaraju Gukesh becomes Chess World Champion

It's not in many sports, or even fields that you have an 18-year-old proclaimed world champion. Rarer still if the champion in question is Indian. Dommaraju Gukesh's Chess World Championship victory over Ding Liren in late 2024 will go down in history for concrete reasons (youngest ever world champion), but it was the intangibles that made it all the more special. Gukesh, a soft-spoken, polite 18-year-old (every Indian parent's dream) had just become the poster boy for a rapidly rising sport.

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Yes, Viswanathan Anand had done it before ("paanch baar" / "five times"). What made Gukesh's achievement all that more special was what it heralded - Indians (or Vishy's children) were about to rule the sport of chess. The dramatic nature of Gukesh's last-gasp win over Ding Liren catapulted this very non-dramatic sport into national consciousness. From being an afterthought prior to the FIDE Candidates to becoming world champion, Gukesh had pushed and pushed, much like his chess, waiting for the break and was rewarded in a stunning way.

Long may the king reign.

-- Sunaadh Sagar

Neeraj Chopra goes Classic, cementing his legacy

There he stood, a bouquet in his hands, a medal around his neck, and tears in his eyes.

Neeraj Chopra won the gold with an 86.18m throw at an event named after him. But the Neeraj Chopra Classic meant more than that. Defying all expectations, more than 14,000 fans had turned up at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium in Bengaluru on July 5th, 2025, to witness India's first World Athletics Category-A javelin event.

It was one thing to compete against the best in the world and win. It's what champions do. However, Neeraj Chopra transcended into a sporting hero when he brought a category A athletics event to Indian soil. Gleefully switching between hosting and competing, the Olympic medallist was already envisioning a grander, multi-discipline athletics event in the future editions of the NC Classic. And the home crowd's deafening support that night meant that Chopra's ambitions, albeit bold, were welcomed.

-- Shruti Sadbhav

90+ for Neeraj in Doha to end all the questions

For a couple of years now, Neeraj Chopra was asked one main question off the field - when would he cross the 90m mark? To his credit he answered it well, with amusement, humour and sometimes frustration; he was trying to break the barrier but was happy to win medals over the number. But the milestone had become a millstone around his neck, despite Olympic and World Championship golds and silvers to his name.

On the field, he answered it in May when he began the 2025 season with a bang and a personal best throw of 90.23m at the Doha Diamond League. After coming within a metre of the mark on five different occasions - his best being only six centimetres away - he finally conquered the one remaining (if arbitrary) frontier in javelin throw. It was a highlight purely for how long he, and we, have waited for him to tick this one item of his achievement list.

-- Zenia D'Cunha

Divya Deshmukh vs Konery Humpy (India vs India) in Chess World Cup final

Divya vs Humpy showcased the very best qualities of Indian sport and did so at one of the highest international levels. The 2025 Women's World Cup final saw a young tyro (irreverent, supremely talented, fearless) take on a veteran (stubborn, consistently brilliant, trailblazer) and show the world that the next gen in Indian chess will not back down from any challenge.

Divya's eventual win was the stuff of fairytales, with her giant-slaying through the late knockouts and her sealing of the elusive GM norm in most emphatic fashion, but it was this final lineup that really stood out. Indian sport simply couldn't have asked for a better advertisement in 2025.

-- Anirudh Menon

Rugby Premier League scores with its first try

There are many, many franchise sports in India trying their very best to mirror the success of the Indian Premier League. Most fail.

The Rugby Premier League went a different way - they started small - just six franchises, but did so in a way where they were able to rope in Olympic and world champions for a small window. For a sport that has historically been mostly played by the 'haves' in Indian society, the RPL went the other way in platforming India's 'have-nots'. Indian athletes who had given up the sport to become delivery agents, were suddenly rubbing shoulders with the very best - and proving themselves equal.

From enthralling the crowds in Mumbai to becoming quite the television spectacle, the Rugby Premier League was a success. For that, the sport of rugby is now richer in India, and not just in monetary terms.

-- Sunaadh Sagar

Despite apathy, the Indian women's football team made history with AFC Asian Cup qualification

Over the last one year or so, Indian football has been at its lowest. On the field, the men's senior national team's form had plummeted and off the field, the national federation has been in turmoil facing various internal and legal issues. The only bright spark in the time of darkness has come from the Indian women's football teams.

First, the senior national team secured a stunning direct qualification to the AFC Women's Asian Cup by beating the higher-ranked and far superior Thailand. It's an outstanding feat considering a lot of the players were carrying the scars of 2022 when they, as hosts of Asian Cup, had to be disqualified because of COVID-19 and then had to endure a spate of coaching changes. Second, only a month later, the Indian women's U20 team secured a qualification for the AFC U20 Women's Asian Cup for the first time in 20 years. The juniors followed the seniors and now we will have two teams, on merit, playing the best of the continent.

-- Anish Anand

Welcome back, Saurabh Chaudhary

Before the Tokyo Olympics, he was the toast of the nation, the next big hope. After the Tokyo Olympics, he had vanished. Until 2025, that is. Saurabh Chaudhary is back. In 2025, Saurabh has been superb in the mixed team event alongside the superb Suruchi Inder Singh, and also won an individual medal at the World Cup in Peru in April. He was also part of the Indian team that won silver at the Asian Championships and won bronze with Suruchi in the mixed team event at the Asian Championships as well.

He has had to completely re-find himself as a pistol shooter. He had to find confidence again, that had been completely dented after Tokyo. He has worked his way back up, bit by bit, finding every bit of the lost confidence and poise that made him the shooter he was in the build-up to the Tokyo Olympics.

Other shooters may have had better results than Saurabh this year, but the story, the struggle he's been through, and where finds himself back again, is why we pick him as one of the highlights of the last year in Indian sport.

-- Aaditya Narayan