Lalita Babar on Saturday qualified for the women’s 3000m steeplechase final after finishing fourth in the qualifying heat 2 with a national record time while compatriot Sudha Singh was eliminated in the Olympic Games. Lalita also became the first Indian woman to reach track final in Olympics since PT Usha in 1984 Los Angeles Games. Lalita, who had won the bronze medal in the event in the Asian Games in […]

Ace sprinter Dutee Chand became the first Indian female athlete to qualify for the 100m dash in Olympics in 36 years as she booked a Rio Games berth at the 26th G Kosanov Memorial Meet in Almaty, Kazakhstan. 20-year-old Dutee clocked 11.30 seconds in the women’s 100m heats and then ran an even better 11.24 seconds in the finals to win a silver medal in the Kazakhstan Meet too book […]

The path to the Olympics is paved with potholes for many athletes but few can claim to have overcome hardship like wrestler Vinod Kumar, who was thrown from a speeding train by a rival’s family in India before landing on his feet in Australia. Melbourne-based Kumar will compete for his adopted country in the 66 kg-class of Greco-Roman wrestling at the Rio de Janeiro Games, six years after landing Down […]

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has set aside calls from 150 leading scientists and public health officials to postpone or move the Rio Olympics because of the ongoing Zika virus.  In an open letter to the WHO and the International Olympic Committee – both organisation based in Switzerland – the experts are asking for the Games to be held in another location. Professor Amir Attaran, one of the co-authors of […]

From selling vegetables in his local village, long distance runner Indrajeet Patel has indeed come far – today he competes with some of the best athletes in the world.He won the 2013 and 2014 editions of the Mumbai Half Marathon and Singapore’s 3000 meter Asian Area Champion (Jr.) in in 2010). Patel doesn’t consider his past as a farmer a hindrance. “Farming is a labour intensive process. Right from sowing […]