Category Archives: Sports

The Force is Strong in the Young One

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The chessworld is “all agog” about the youngest player to ever upset a Grand Master – 9 year old Hetul Shah –

“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.” – Mark Twain

New Delhi (IANS): Nine-year old Hetul Shah created history in the first round of the seventh Parsvnath International Open Chess tournament, defeating Grand Master Nurlan Ibrayev of Kazakhstan on Sunday.

…Hetul was a class act Sunday afternoon as he not only recorded his biggest victory but also ensured a name in the record books. Hetul is the youngest ever to beat a Grandmaster, bettering the Indian record set up by Parimarjan Negi by more than a year.

The Hindustan Times gives us this player profile –

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There is a First Time for Everything!

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Given our people’s track record in professional sports in the United States (virtually nonexistent outside a small handful), I was pretty surprised to see the following story on the Pittsburgh Pirates signing two Indians, yes Indians, from India — Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel — as pitchers. From the article:

The two 20-year-old pitchers, neither of whom had picked up a baseball until earlier this year, signed free-agent contracts Monday with the Pirates. They are believed to be the first athletes from India to sign professional baseball contracts outside their country. Singh and Patel are believed to be first athletes from India to sign professional baseball contracts outside their country.

Patel (L) Singh (R)

I think these are probably the first Indians to sign professional baseball contracts period. I could be mistaken, but I don’t think there are even any Indian-American or South Asian American professional baseball players. The way this happened is pretty interesting. Singh and Patel came to the United States six months ago after being the top finishers in an Indian reality TV show called the “Million Dollar Arm. ” The show drew about 30,000 contestants and was trying to find athletes who could throw strikes at 85 miles per hour or faster. One would think this would be possible in a country of over a billion. Hmm, not exaclty. But while neither pitcher threw hard enough to earn the $1 million prize, Singh made $100,000 from the contest and Patel made $2,500, plus his trip to the United States.

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Anoop Josan reprazent.

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Anoop.jpeg

I think mutineer Fuerza Dulce said it best when she emailed us this tip:

A brown girl fighting for the world cup? Sweet.

Word!

Hold up, hey–I have to write an entire post? Truly, 20-year old midfielder Anoop Josan is so fantastic that I shouldn’t have to, but FINE. Be that way. Just EXPECT me to paste stuff, why don’t you…

From the official University of Texas, El Paso athletic site:

UTEP junior midfield Anoop Josan has passed through the final roster cuts for Team Canada, and will help her country fight for the championship at the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup Chile 2008 from Nov. 19-Dec. 7. The placement to the squad will afford Josan the opportunity to showcase her talents on one of the highest stages in the sport.
The native of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, who is redshirting this year in order to compete at the prestigious event, is no stranger to the international stage. She was a member of the Canadian Olympic Development Team that won the 2007 International Soccer Festival. Furthermore, she has worked out and gained experience at the National Training Center. She also competed at the 2005 adidas cup as a member of the U-18 national team and for the U-17 development team.
“I am so proud of Anoop making the Canadian Under-20 World Cup team,” UTEP head coach Kevin Cross said. “It is a dream come true for her, and she has worked her whole life for this opportunity to represent her country. Not only is she representing Team Canada, but she is also representing the UTEP Soccer program very well.” [UTEP]

Oh, she’s representing all right. GO AJ! <—That would be her nickname. A nickname I think very highly of. Ahem. 😉

I discovered that bit of Anoop Josan-trivia here, where I ganked the rest of this disjointed information:

…both of her parents were born in India… grew up playing volleyball, tennis, soccer… enjoys watching movies… speaks English and Punjabi… [link]

And once she’s done with the wonderful world cup?

Josan will once again take the pitch for the Miners in 2009, and Cross’ charges will certainly be glad to have her back. She has been an instrumental member of the squad since venturing to the Sun City. In 2006 Josan tallied the second-highest single-season assist total (14) in program history on the way to earning freshman All-America honors. Last year, Josan started 18 of 21 matches. She racked up three goals and three assists for nine points.[UTEP]

Random aside #1- Before this story, I had never encountered a girl named Anoop. I like it. I like that it’s different. Unexpected. Well, to me, anyway. Less random aside #2- brown girls who play soccer are teh hawt. Thanks for the tip, FD! Continue reading →

Collecting Tinsel

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Every few years we’ve asked why India’s performance at international sporting events is so poor (1, 2 for example).

Since independence in 1947, India has won 12 Olympic medals in 14 Summer Games – three fewer than Belarus won in 2004 alone. [Link]

Diagnosing India’s athletic failings seems to be India’s favorite sport:

Many theories have been proposed to account for India’s failure. Some experts say India has not much in the way of sports culture and few heroes; others blame a “corrupt sporting bureaucracy”. Things have got so bad that in the past, Indian sports ministers have suggested a moratorium on international competition to train athletes who will not be a national embarrassment. [Link]

Recently, two economists argued that a lack of social mobility is the key culprit:

Anirudh Krishna and Eric Haglund… said that the problem for India is … the number of people who can “effectively participate in sports”.

“Ill health and poor nutrition can hamper early childhood development. In addition, lack of information and lack of access can effectively exclude larges swaths of a country’s population. The resulting small percentage of effective participants helps explain more fully why despite such a large population and a large potential talent pool, a country ends up winning very few Olympic medals,” …

Controversially, the paper contends that social mobility is the key to countries’ success at the Olympics. Populations that are better informed and better connected to opportunities, in societies where information and access are widespread “tend to win a higher share of Olympic medals”, they said. [Link]

While they accept that low GDP has something to do with India’s performance, they point out that India underperforms even amongst its peers, arguing that Cuba, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, Kenya and Uzbekistan have each done far better than India.

Over at Marginal Revolution, Libertarian economist Tyler Cowen places the blame on … a lack of government subsidy. If Tyler’s right, then we should see some changes in the short term, now that Mittal is putting his money behind athletes training for the 2012 Olympics.

The goal is to “put India on the medals grid” in the 2012 London Games by identifying India’s best young athletes and giving them the money to travel the world in search of the best competition and coaches. [Link]

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Three Kumars, how many medals?

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Right now, three of India’s five boxers are advancing to the quarter-finals in Beijing, putting them each just one win away from a medal: Akhil Kumar (bantamweight), his cousin Jitender Kumar (flyweight), and Vijender Kumar (middleweight).

Part time model, police inspector, and possibly India’s first professional boxer.

Given India’s poor showing in track and field, where all the athletes were eliminated in the qualification rounds, and the decision to pull India’s sole weightlifter after (what turned out to be a false) positive on a doping test, there is a lot riding on the performance of the three Kumars.

On the positive side, it’s a historic opportunity for India. Abinav Bindra’s gold medal was India’s first ever individual gold at the Olympics, if any of these three make it to the top, the country will celebrate as if Michael Phelps was their very own.

The fights promise to be exciting as well. Jitender, who is the only novice Olympian of the three, will next face off against three-time European champion Russian Georgy Balakshin in a rematch of their 2007 World Championship fight, where Balakshin prevailed by a single point. (clips from first round, via UB)

All three boxers (plus teamate Dinesh Kumar who got lost in the first round) come from a single boxing club – the Bhiwani Boxing Club in the village city of Bhiwani, Haryana, a place known as India’s “little Cuba”. This is the heartland of Indian boxing:

The place spawns hundreds of young fighters who spar every evening at the five local boxing schools. Here, learning to box is a passport to a secure government job and an opportunity to do something meaningful in life. [Link]

Up till now, boxing has received little popular recognition in India, something that might change after this Olympics:

It is not easy becoming a boxer in a cricket-crazy country. “People here think boxers are violent or mad” … “My blood boils when everybody goes gaga over cricket” says Vijender. [Link]

As a result, Vijender (the middleweight and possibly the most promising of the three) supplements the money that the government awarded him for victories in the Commonwealth and Asian Games with part time work modelling, and a job as a police inspector, all the time dreaming of becoming India’s first professional boxer:

“A promoter like Don King, a ring inside Madison Square Garden, and millions of dollars per bout. That is my dream, that is where I want to be,” [Link]

Who knows, he might just be a contender.

Update: And then there were two. Akhil Kumar lost to Veaceslav Gojan in the quarter-finals of the men’s 54 kg bantamweight category. Given that he narrowly defeated current world champion Sergey Vodopyanov on Indian independence day, this is must be a disappointment. (Video) (HT: Dhoni)

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Game, Set, Somdev!

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Last night, I unexpectedly ended up at the Legg Mason Tennis Classic, where I watched Andy Roddick struggle early on and then barely defeat Argentina’s Eduardo Schwank (my tennis-obsessed date dismissively characterized it as “outlasting him”). I wasn’t that interested in watching Mandy Moore’s ex- swing, but the next match had me sitting up straight and paying rapt attention– and not just because I was suddenly court-side.

UVA’s beloved Somdev Devvarman, the reigning NCAA men’s champ (two years running!), played someone else and he did it so well, I don’t even remember who his opponent was. He was fierce, unrelenting…just a gritty player. It was mesmerizing to watch (and quite a thrill to out-shout the punk behind us, who was hating on our boy). Suddenly, for the first time in over a decade, I was interested in tennis again.

Behold, shady background info from wikipedia (I’m late for the match!):

Somdev Devvarman (also known as Somdev Dev Varman) is the reigning and two-time NCAA Men’s Singles Champion. As a recent graduate out of the University of Virginia who hails from India, Somdev is best known for having captured the 2007 NCAA Singles Championship by defeating Georgia Bulldogs senior John Isner in the final. In one of the most dramatic finals in the 123-year history of the tournament, Devvarman scored a 7–6 (7), 4–6, 7–6 (2) win over the tournament’s No. 1 seed. A year later, he defeated Tennessee’s J.P. Smith 6-3, 6-2 to take home his second consecutive NCAA Singles National Championship. It was his historic third consecutive appearance in the NCAA singles final.
Devvarman, the son of Ranjana and Pravanjan Dev Varman, was born February 13, 1985 in Assam, India. He has an older sister, Paulami, and older brother, Aratrik. The Dev Varmans originally hail from the north-eastern Indian state of Tripura. Devvarman picked up the racquet as a nine-year-old in Chennai in 1994 and after learning the basics he made it to the Britannia Amritraj Tennis Academy in 2000. [viki]

The video I embedded above will fill you in quickly– cheesy shots of him moving around like it’s a Sesame Street stop-animation-skit aside– about Somdev. He’s humble, cheerful and adorable. We likey. In fact, we likey so much, we may be live-micro-blogging it, via Twitter. If we can tear our eyes away from watching him play, that is… Continue reading →

Highs and lows at the Olympics (updated)

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Watching the Olympics this past weekend has been equal parts exhilarating and depressing. Seeing the American men win the 4 x 100 m swimming relay last night was un-freaking-real! But it also sent me in to full, early mid-life crisis mode. Am I the only one? I kept thinking how I’m now too old and beat-up to be an Olympian and I was feeling kind of jealous of fellow Wolverine Michael Phelps (would my upper body look like that if I growled in victory poolside?). And then this morning my depression lifted some. Even though I woke to the upsetting news that American Badminton stud Raju Rai had lost to a Finn (read here to understand how hard the environment is), I was quickly informed that Abhinav Bindra of India won the Gold in the 10m Air Rifle! It was Bindra that turned out to be the great brown hope.

So how did Abhinav help me to avert my midlife crisis until another day? Just look at our boy. He looks like and ordinary IT guy or an engineer or friendly grad student. He is now a national hero. A Peter Parker of sorts. He is the great common brown guy hope! Not all of us can have Phelps upper body, but some of us can imagine looking like this (I like paintballing for instance ).

From a virtual non-entity to the country’s hottest property overnight, Abhinav Bindra has struck gold. Not just in Olympics. The Chandigarh shooter who picked up India’s first ever individual gold in Olympics is expected to see his brand value shooting up to a couple of crores, riding not only on his historic feat but also his youthful personality. [Link]

Oh, lighten-up you nationalists! I’m just joking around. A hearty congrats to Abhinav! The dude even has over a 1000 comments on his latest blog entry. A feat unmatched by even…me. Well at least I can go after that record.

And for every hero of the day there is the sad story of the day. Poor Sania. Pulled out because her wrist was hurting. That’s what cortisone injections are for woman!

Raj Bhavsar lives on!!!

Update: Raj sports the bronze. Awesome.

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Cricket in America: From the American Revolution to the NYPD

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A few days ago, I opened up the Chicago Tribune to see this nice story about games of cricket taking place in the Chicago suburbs, which is not a rare occurrence in most South Asian communities. Yet, as I did some research, I found that cricket has an interesting history in the United States that extends far back before the South Asian diaspora. After all the United States was a British colony as well. A disclaimer here: I am proud to say I have a reasonable knowledge of cricket and am a devoted Cricinfo reader, but I can’t say I know cricket as well as, say, the NBA, and thus, I’m sure many of you will know more about cricket in America than I do – please do contribute your knowledge on the subject. Cricket in the United States extends back as far as the 18th century. This great Smithsonian article speaks of some of the earliest recorded history of cricket in the states:

In a diary he kept between 1709 and 1712, William Byrd, owner of the Virginia plantation Westover, noted, “I rose at 6 o’clock and read a chapter in Hebrew. About 10 o’clock Dr. Blair, and Major and Captain Harrison came to see us. After I had given them a glass of sack we played cricket. I ate boiled beef for my dinner. Then we played at shooting with arrows…and went to cricket again till dark.”

Evidently, spending large portions of the day playing and following cricket is a practice as old as the British Empire itself. Not only that, but the Smithsonian has uncovered some Revolutionary Hero interest in cricket:

The rules of the game on this side of the Atlantic were formalized in 1754, when Benjamin Franklin brought back from England a copy of the 1744 Laws, cricket’s official rule book. There is anecdotal evidence that George Washington’s troops played what they called “wickets” at Valley Forge in the summer of 1778. After the Revolution, a 1786 advertisement for cricket equipment appeared in the New York Independent Journal, and newspaper reports of that time frequently mention “young gentlemen” and “men of fashion” taking up the sport. Indeed, the game came up in the debate over what to call the new nation’s head of state: John Adams noted disapprovingly—and futilely—that “there are presidents of fire companies and cricket clubs.”

Disregarding John Adams’ chronic moodiness, cricket continued to have a strong presence in the U.S. throughout the 19th century. The first ever international cricket match was held in the U.S., a match between the U.S. and Canada in 1844, in Bloomingdale, New York. The considerable national interest in this game was evident, as 20,000 spectators attended and the equivalent of 1.5 million 2007 dollars were wagered on the match. The United States set a telling precedent in the match, however, losing by 23 runs. As the 19th century neared its end, baseball began to take precedence, and with that, the primacy of cricket in America’s sporting interests neared its end. One place, however, where cricket was still going strong was in the city of Philadelphia. The Philadelphian Cricket Team carried the mantle as the last remaining bastion of professional cricketing in the U.S., and frequently toured England and Australia, playing against some of the best cricketers in the world. A sign of the declining influence of the sport in America was that the American team consisted of “gentleman” players that had sources of wealth that allowed them to play cricket at no salary. 154px-Bart_King_Head_Shot.jpg The team had on it the best American cricket player in our national history, Bart King. King was quite the guy:

King was a skilled batsman, but proved his worth as a bowler. During his career, he set numerous records in North America and led the first-class bowling averages in England in 1908. He successfully competed against the best cricketers from England and Australia. King was the dominant bowler on his team when it toured England in 1897, 1903, and 1908. He dismissed batsmen with his unique delivery, which he called the “angler,” and helped develop the art of swing bowling in the sport. Many of the great bowlers of today still use the strategies and techniques that he developed. Sir Pelham Warner described Bart King as one of the finest bowlers of all time, and Donald Bradman called him “America’s greatest cricketing son.”

Bart King and his generation of extraordinary American cricketers could not live forever, though, and baseball only continued to gain in popularity throughout the country. As the 1910’s came to a close, the Philadelphian cricket team played its last game. Cricket in the U.S. became increasingly harder to sustain when the Imperial Cricket Conference was created, excluding non-British Empire members. Continue reading →

Cocks of Fury

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Early in high school I weighed about 105 lbs soaking wet. I know, laugh if you want to. I am descended from two bean poles so I was at a genetic disadvantage. This was, after all, long before my collegiate boxing, my climbing adventures, and before I started appearing shirtless in “Boys of Blogging” calenders (ahem…cough cough). So just how does a 105 lb boy make his way in the brutal world that is high school? By laying low, very low. Most people don’t notice a scrawny little kid in high school (as many of our readers might sympathize with). I was also very very very shy.

I hung out with the nerd/geek crowd at the first of the two high schools I attended. It wasn’t much fun as nothing exciting ever happens in the nerd/geek crowd. One day however, my friends and I hatched a plan. The only way that we could raise our station in life was to be on a high school sports team. Even JV would do. This would be our ticket out. But what could I play? Basketball was definitely out. I was a fierce defender but way too short. Baseball? I could play infield but could barely hit the ball out of the infield. Football? Ha Ha Ha. I was pretty good at indoor hockey on the gym floor and rough enough that one kid even tried to fight me for high-sticking his friend until the PE teacher broke it up. However, there is no gym floor hockey team in high school. And then, like a ray of light the answer was revealed. My high school would be holding try-outs for the…Badminton Team.

I was pretty good at badminton and my odds were good because none of the cool kids (who were also the more athletic kids) would EVER be seen anywhere near a shuttlecock. My svelte body would dart back and forth pounding that birdie mercilessly. The fact that it looked like a tiny upside down Apollo capsule re-entering through Earth’s atmosphere was just a bonus (although I could’t say that out loud or even the geeks would make fun of me). The problem was that the competition was cut-throat. All the other geeks were gunning for the same few spots. Many of them were also Asian or South Asian since, for some strange reason, Asians have a fascination with racket sports. Every day I practiced and practiced, honing my skills while huffing like a young Boris Becker of Badminton. Then, the day before the try-outs I came down with a cold and was battling flu like symptoms all day. After watching television while slumped in a couch I got up too quickly, got a massive head rush, passed out, cut my head open on my metal bed frame as I fell, bled all over the place, and had to get stitches in the ER. The doctor ordered me to miss tryouts the next day. I didn’t make the team. This was the single most scarring failure of my life. And that brings me to the point of this thus far depressing post: American Olympian Raju Rai. Geek has been replaced with chic.

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Raj Bhavsar is Going to the Big Dance

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Numerous readers have been sending us tips regarding Raj Bhavsar, an alternate on the U.S. men’s gymnastics team who will get to compete for the gold in Beijing after all. The space opened up on the team after star gymnast Paul Hamm was forced to withdraw due to injury.

Bhavsar was an alternate in 2004 as well, but didn’t get to compete. Despite a discouraging few years, Bhavsar continued to practice and train hard this spring and summer on the off-chance that a space might open up. Now his perseverance has paid off, and we wish him all the best. Based on what his colleagues and trainers have said about Bhavsar, as well as his own quotes in USA Today and The Houston Chronicle, he seems like a class act. (The ESPN story on Bhavsar also talks about how Bikram Yoga has helped him learn to concentrate better in the past year, a fact that I find quite interesting.)

NBC also had a nice profile of Bhavsar during the 2008 trials:

And you can see him performing a whole routine on rings here. (The dude has some serious biceps!)

Along with the stories about Raj Bhavsar (an Indian-American), KXB linked in the News Tab to a story in Foreign Policy about the “world’s worst Olympians,” where India actually tops the list (only 17 medals in its entire history). There is an inevitable discussion waiting to happen there, on why India always does so poorly (as I recall we had a version of it two years ago, when the World Cup was on). I don’t have any big answers, other than the obvious ones given in Foreign Policy: lack of sports venues, lack of school sports funding, lack of investment in preparing athletes for the Olympics. I don’t know whether “culture” is also a factor; I tend to think not.

At any rate, this year India is sending 57 atheletes to the Olympics, including the Paes and Bhupathi team for tennis doubles (where I suspect they might have a real shot). We might profile a few of the athletes in subsequent posts, depending on what comes up upon typing their names into the Google. Pakistan, for its part, is sending 23 athletes; Sri Lanka is sending eight (or maybe seven, depending on how we add 3+4); and Bangladesh is also sending a small contingent, to compete for wild card spots. Continue reading →