Beyond Cricket: Indian Athletes Every Young Person Should Know
Cricket is our religion, but Indian sport is much bigger. From Neeraj Chopra’s javelin to D Gukesh’s world chess crown, the stories of champions who inspire beyond the cricket field.
In most Indian homes, including mine, sport usually means cricket. We know every IPL score and every batting average. But in the last few years, some of India’s proudest sporting moments have come from fields that are not 22 yards long.
When I tell children about these athletes, their eyes light up. So here are a few champions — and the lessons from their journeys — that every young person should know, as of early 2026.
🎯 Neeraj Chopra: The Javelin That Changed Indian Athletics
At the Tokyo Olympics in August 2021, Neeraj Chopra won gold in javelin — India’s first Olympic gold in athletics. He followed it with the World Championships gold in Budapest in 2023 and an Olympic silver in Paris in 2024.
In May 2025, at the Doha Diamond League, he finally crossed the 90-metre mark with a throw of 90.23 m, a target he had chased for years. Later that season, at the World Championships in Tokyo, he finished eighth, ending a long run of podium finishes.
Lesson: even champions have off days. What matters is how they respond — and Neeraj has always spoken about setbacks with humility.
♟️ D Gukesh: The Youngest World Chess Champion
In December 2024, in Singapore, Chennai’s D Gukesh defeated China’s Ding Liren to become the 18th undisputed World Chess Champion. At 18, he became the youngest undisputed world champion in history.
For us in Tamil Nadu, this was extra special. Chennai has long been called India’s chess capital, inspired by Viswanathan Anand, India’s first grandmaster and a five-time world champion.
Lesson: calm focus and preparation beat age and experience. Gukesh was known for staying composed even in difficult positions.
🧠 Praggnanandhaa, Divya and Humpy: India’s Chess Wave
- R Praggnanandhaa, also from Chennai, reached the final of the 2023 FIDE World Cup, and in early 2025 won the prestigious Tata Steel Masters in the Netherlands, beating Gukesh in a tiebreak.
- Divya Deshmukh won the FIDE Women’s World Cup in Batumi in July 2025, defeating Koneru Humpy in an all-Indian final and earning the grandmaster title.
- Koneru Humpy, a long-time star, won the Women’s World Rapid Championship in December 2024 in New York — her second rapid world title.
- At the 2024 Chess Olympiad in Budapest, India won gold in both the open and women’s sections.
“Champions are not born on the podium. They are made in thousands of quiet practice hours nobody sees.”
🥉 Other Stars Worth Knowing
- Manu Bhaker won two bronze medals in shooting at the Paris 2024 Olympics, becoming the first Indian to win two medals at a single Olympics since independence.
- PV Sindhu won Olympic medals in badminton at Rio 2016 (silver) and Tokyo 2020 (bronze).
- The Indian men’s hockey team won bronze medals at both Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024, reviving a proud tradition.
- In January 2025, India won both the men’s and women’s titles at the first Kho Kho World Cup in New Delhi.
💡 What These Champions Teach Us
- Patience: Neeraj chased 90 metres for years before reaching it.
- Early start, long journey: most chess champions began as small children, with families supporting them through years of tournaments.
- Mental strength: in chess, shooting and javelin, the mind matters as much as the body — similar to the pressure lessons in what cricket teaches about pressure.
- Grace in defeat: how you handle a bad day says more about you than a medal.
✨ Takeaway
Cricket will always be close to my heart, but Indian sport is far bigger than one game. Introduce your children to chess, athletics, shooting, badminton and hockey. Let them find their own field. And if you stopped playing years ago, maybe it is time to play a sport again yourself.
Software engineer by skill, storyteller by soul. I write about life, health, money and technology from my own experience — and build free tools you can use every day.
