10 sportswomen of outstanding merit that have made India proud

19-year-old Hima from Assam has been nicknamed Dhing Express for her astonishing track record. The teen from Dhing has achievements too big for her years. The winner of World U-20 Championships 2018 – 400 meters, also holds Indian National Record in 400 meters won at the 2018 Asian Games and is India’s first athlete to bring Gold from track event at the IAAF World U20 Championships. In September last year, she was conferred with the Arjuna Award.

In 2011, national level volleyball player Arunima lost her leg to a train accident, but a limb was the only thing she lost; her hope and ambitions were left unscathed. At 30 years old, Arunima is the first female amputee to scale the daunting heights of Mount Vinson and Mount Everest. She had set a goal for herself: to climb all highest peaks in all the continents. Within 3 years from her accident she covered the peaks in Europe, Asia, North and South America, Australia, and Africa and climbed Mount Vinson.

Captain of the Indian women’s cricket team, Mithali, is the first player to score 7 consecutive half-centuries in ODIs and boasts the record for the maximum number of 50s in Women’s One Day Internationals. Raj has captained the Indian women’s cricket team in 2 ICC ODI World Cup finals, and that makes her the only Indian caption ever – Men or Women – to have captained the team in more than one World Cup. She was awarded the Arjuna Award in 2003 and became the 4th highest civilian with the Padma Shri in 2015.

Indian Olympic boxer from the North eastern state of Manipur is also the first woman to win World Amateur Boxing champion six times, and the only woman to have bagged a medal in all the seven world championships. India’s first woman boxer to win a Gold Medal in the Asian Games and at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, Mary Kom is a youth icon with one of the longest list of accolades, including the Arjuna Award, the Padma Shree, and the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award to her name.

The freestyle wrestler brought home India’s first Commonwealth Games gold medal in wrestling and thanks to her bio-pic, the story of her struggle and success is known to everyone now. The 30-year-old already has four gold medals to her name, along with three bronzes and one silver. In November 2016, Phogat married fellow wrestler Pawan Kumar.

A former World No 1, Sania has six Grand Slam Titles to her name. In a very young age, the tennis player from Hyderabad became one of the most successful and highest paid tennis stars in the word. She won her Arjuna Award in 2004, and in 2016 she was given the title of ‘NRI of the Year’. In the midst, she was honored with Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri. Apart from sports, Sania played an important in reshaping the attitude of an average Indian towards its women in connection with sports. Mirza is also the brand ambassador of Telangana State since its formation.

Former World No 1 Saina Nehwal has than 24 international titles, including 22 Superseries. She is the only female from India, and as a player second only to Prakash Padukone, who has been able to score the World No 1 ranking in badminton. The Padma Bhushan Awardee is a five times gold winner, has secured silver four times and brought home many bronze medals. In her career so far, Nehwal has registered 414 wins against 177 losses.

Hyderabad has given us many women champions, and P V Sindhu is the next one on our list. Sindhu is the first Indian woman to win an Olympic silver medal, is a silver medalist at the 2017 BWF World Championships and 2018 BWF World Championships also. She was only 17 when she grabbed international attention by breaking into the top 20 of the BWF World Ranking. With earnings of $8.5 million, She also made it to Forbes’ list of “Highest-Paid Female Athletes 2018”. The Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna awardee is employed with Bharat Petroleum where she works as an assistant sports manager since 2013.

Winning her first international title at 8, Tania was a successful under-12 Indian chess champion. After nailing the Asian Junior Girls Championship in 2002, she continued to up her game – quite literally – and today, holds the FIDE titles of Woman Grandmaster and International Master. Her present FIDE ratting is 2400 and at its peak it was 2443.

She is etched in our collective memory as the desi wrestle in an orange salwar-kameez. She is in fact the first female professional wrestler in WWE from India and goes by the name of Hard KD in the ring. Trained by The Great Khali, she had represented India at the 2016 South Asian Games and brought home gold after winning in the 75 kg category.