Sports GK Mixed Quiz: Set 10

The correct answer is C, 10 metre air rifle. Abhinav Bindra won the gold medal in the men's 10 metre air rifle event at the Beijing Olympic Games of 2008, and it remains the first individual gold medal ever won by India at the Olympics; the only earlier golds had been won by the men's hockey team. Option A is wrong because the 25 metre rapid fire pistol is the event in which Vijay Kumar won a silver medal at London in 2012. Option B is wrong because double trap, a shotgun event, is where Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore won a silver at Athens in 2004, India's first individual silver in shooting. Option D is wrong because the 50 metre rifle three positions event, fired prone, standing and kneeling, is where Swapnil Kusale won a bronze medal at Paris in 2024.

The correct answer is A, Chaturanga. Chaturanga was played in India in the Gupta age and its name means four limbs, standing for the four divisions of an ancient army: infantry, cavalry, elephants and chariots. These four survive on the modern board as the pawn, the knight, the bishop and the rook. The game passed to Persia, where it was called Shatranj and where the phrase shah mat, meaning the king is helpless, gave English the word checkmate, and reached Europe through the Arabs. Option B is wrong because Pachisi is a race game played on a cross-shaped cloth with cowrie shells, the ancestor of Ludo. Option C is wrong because Gilli Danda is a village bat-and-stick game with no board. Option D is wrong because Chausar, the dice game of the Mahabharata story, is a relative of Pachisi and not of chess.

The correct answer is C, 64. A chessboard is a square divided into eight rows, called ranks, and eight columns, called files, so the number of squares is 8 multiplied by 8, that is 64. They are coloured alternately light and dark, 32 of each, and the board is turned so that each player has a light square in the bottom right corner. Each side begins with 16 pieces, which fill the first two ranks, so 32 of the 64 squares are occupied at the start. Option A is wrong because 36 would be a six by six board. Option B is wrong because 49 would be seven by seven. Option D is wrong because 81 is the nine by nine grid of Sudoku, not of chess. Remember the pair of figures: 64 squares and 32 pieces.

The correct answer is D, Karnataka. Karnataka won the 2017-18 Vijay Hazare Trophy, beating Saurashtra in the final played in Delhi. The tournament is India's premier domestic limited-overs competition for state teams, run by the Board of Control for Cricket in India since 2002-03, and it is named after Vijay Hazare, the batsman who led India to its first Test victory, against England at Madras in 1952. Karnataka's Mayank Agarwal was the story of that season, scoring 723 runs, the highest total by any batsman in a single edition of the trophy. Option A is wrong because Uttar Pradesh did not reach the 2017-18 final. Option B is wrong because Kerala was knocked out before the final that season. Option C is wrong because Maharashtra also failed to reach the final; Karnataka's opponent was Saurashtra. Exam tip: Vijay Hazare Trophy is the one-day tournament, the Ranji Trophy the first-class one and the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy the Twenty20 one.

The correct answer is B, Boxing. A southpaw is a boxer who stands with the right foot forward and leads with the right hand because the left is the stronger one, and below the belt describes an illegal punch landed under the waistline, for which the referee warns or disqualifies the offender. Option A is wrong because wrestling has its own vocabulary of fall, takedown, half nelson, gut wrench and technical superiority. Option C is wrong because shooting speaks of the bullseye, sighter shots, prone and kneeling positions, trap and skeet. Option D is wrong because fencing uses terms such as foil, epee, sabre, riposte, lunge and en garde. Other boxing terms worth remembering are the jab, the hook, the uppercut, the clinch and the knockout counted to ten.

The correct answer is D, Field hockey. A 16-yard hit is the free hit given to the defending team in field hockey when an attacker sends the ball over the back line without a goal being scored. The ball is placed in line with the point where it crossed the line, 16 yards or about 14.63 metres out from the inner edge of the back line, and a defender takes the hit while opponents stand at least five metres away. The same hit is awarded when an attacking player commits an offence inside the shooting circle. A is wrong because golf is measured in holes, pars and the yardage of fairways and has no such hit. B is wrong because lawn tennis uses terms such as deuce, ace, let and smash. C is wrong because cricket's restarts are the no-ball, the wide and a free hit of an entirely different kind. Exam tip: hockey terms - 16-yard hit, penalty corner, and the penalty stroke taken from 6.4 metres.

The correct answer is B, 1924. FIDE, the Federation Internationale des Echecs, was founded in Paris in 1924, and its motto is Gens una sumus, a Latin phrase meaning we are one people. Because it was founded on 20 July, that date is observed every year as International Chess Day. FIDE awards the lifetime titles of Candidate Master, FIDE Master, International Master and Grandmaster, and it runs the world championship cycle and the Chess Olympiad. Option A is wrong because 1912 belongs to no landmark in chess administration. Option C is wrong because 1936 is a decade after the founding. Option D is wrong because 1951 is the year the All India Chess Federation, the national body, was formed, which is a different fact that examiners deliberately place among the options.

The correct answer is C, Bhalchandra Bhaskar Bhagwat. The Dronacharya Award, India's honour for coaches who produce outstanding sportspersons, was given for the first time in 1985, and Bhalchandra Bhaskar Bhagwat, a wrestling coach, was among the first three to receive it, along with O.M. Nambiar in athletics and Om Prakash Bhardwaj in boxing. The award is named after Dronacharya, the teacher of the Pandavas and the Kauravas in the Mahabharata, and it carries a bronze statuette of Dronacharya, a certificate and a cash prize. It is given in two categories, regular and lifetime. Option A is wrong because Hansa Sharma was not among the first recipients. Option B is wrong because Karan Singh did not receive the award in 1985. Option D is wrong because Hawa Singh, the boxer, was honoured as a coach much later, not in the first list. Exam tip: the Dronacharya Award began in 1985, the Arjuna Award in 1961 and the Khel Ratna in 1991-92.

The correct answer is B, Boxing. The code published in 1867 under the patronage of John Douglas, the ninth Marquess of Queensberry, turned bare-knuckle prize fighting into a regulated sport: it made padded gloves compulsory, fixed the round at three minutes with a minute of rest, introduced the ten-second count for a downed boxer and forbade wrestling holds, and modern amateur and professional boxing still rests on it. Option A is wrong because wrestling's rules come from the international federation now called United World Wrestling and from older classical traditions. Option C is wrong because shooting is regulated by the International Shooting Sport Federation, whose rulebook is far more recent. Option D is wrong because weightlifting rules, covering the snatch and the clean and jerk, come from its own world federation and have no link with the Queensberry code.

The correct answer is B, Fencing. Chadalavada Anandha Sundhararaman Bhavani Devi is an Indian fencer from Chennai who competes in the sabre event. She became the first Indian fencer to qualify for the Olympic Games, at Tokyo in 2021, and won her opening bout there. She has taken gold at the Commonwealth Fencing Championship and a medal at the Asian Fencing Championship, and she trains with support from the Target Olympic Podium Scheme. Fencing is a sword-fighting sport with three weapons - foil, epee and sabre - fought on a strip called a piste, where hits are recorded electronically. Option A is wrong because rowing is a water sport, in which India has been represented by athletes such as Bajrang Lal Takhar. Option C is wrong because Bhavani Devi has never been a boxer. Option D is wrong because she is not a wrestler. Exam tip: Bhavani Devi is a fencer in the sabre event and the first Indian fencer at the Olympics.

The correct answer is A, 20 July. The date marks the founding of FIDE, the international chess federation, in Paris on 20 July 1924, and the day is observed by chess federations across the world with tournaments and school events. Option B is wrong because 19 November is observed as World Toilet Day and has no link with chess. Option C is wrong because 29 August is National Sports Day in India, kept on the birth anniversary of the hockey player Dhyan Chand. Option D is wrong because 6 April is the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace, a United Nations observance covering sport in general rather than one game. The link to remember is simple: the founding day of the world body became the day of the sport.

The correct answer is A, Golf. The Ryder Cup is a team golf tournament, played between teams representing the United States and Europe. It began in 1927 and is named after Samuel Ryder, the English seed merchant who donated the trophy. The event is held every two years, the venue alternating between American and European courses, and unlike most professional golf it is a match-play team contest in which no prize money is paid to the players. The women's equivalent is the Solheim Cup. B is wrong because table tennis has the Swaythling Cup and the Corbillon Cup. C is wrong because cricket's main trophies are the World Cup, the Ashes and the Ranji Trophy. D is wrong because hockey has the Azlan Shah Cup and, in India, the Dhyan Chand Trophy and the Rangaswamy Cup. Exam tip: link golf with the Ryder Cup, the Solheim Cup, the Walker Cup and the Presidents Cup.

The correct answer is B, Munich. The International Shooting Sport Federation, abbreviated as ISSF, has its headquarters in Munich in Germany, the same city that hosted the Olympic Games of 1972, and it frames the rules for rifle, pistol and shotgun events and recognises world records. Option A is wrong because Lausanne in Switzerland is the seat of the International Olympic Committee, a fact often confused with the individual federations. Option C is wrong because Zurich, also in Switzerland, houses the world football body FIFA and the world athletics body has its own separate base in Monaco. Option D is wrong because Rome is not the seat of the shooting federation; India's own governing body for the sport is the National Rifle Association of India, with its office in New Delhi.

The correct answer is B, Khashaba Dadasaheb Jadhav. Jadhav, a wrestler from Satara in Maharashtra, won the bronze medal in freestyle bantamweight wrestling at the Helsinki Olympic Games of 1952, and that was the first Olympic medal won by an individual athlete of independent India, all earlier medals having come to the men's hockey team. Option A is wrong because Sushil Kumar's medals came much later, a bronze at Beijing in 2008 and a silver at London in 2012, which made him the first Indian with two individual Olympic medals but not the first medallist. Option C is wrong because Guru Hanuman was a celebrated coach who received the Dronacharya Award and the Padma Shri; he trained wrestlers rather than competing at the Olympics. Option D is wrong because Yogeshwar Dutt won his bronze at the London Games of 2012.

The correct answer is C, Knight. The knight moves in the shape of the letter L, two squares along a rank or file and then one square at right angles, and it is the only piece that may pass over any piece standing in its way, its own or the opponent's. This is why a knight is so dangerous in a crowded position and why it can attack a queen without being blocked. Option A is wrong because a bishop slides along diagonals and stops at the first piece in its path, always staying on squares of one colour. Option B is wrong because a rook slides along ranks and files and is blocked in the same way. Option D is wrong because a queen combines the powers of rook and bishop but still cannot jump. Castling moves two pieces at once but is not a jump by an ordinary piece.

The correct answer is B, Venus Rosewater Dish. The ladies' singles champion at Wimbledon receives a sterling silver salver, a flat dish rather than a cup, decorated with figures from classical mythology, and it has been awarded since 1886. The men's champion, by contrast, lifts the Gentlemen's Singles Trophy, a gilded silver cup.

Option A, the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup, goes to the women's singles champion at the Australian Open and is named after a five time Australian champion of the 1920s. Option C, the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen, is the French Open women's trophy, named after the great French player of the 1920s. Option D, the Norman Brookes Challenge Cup, is the Australian Open men's trophy. Since each Major has a separate name for its men's and its women's prize, the safest way to learn them is as four pairs rather than as eight separate names.

The correct answer is B, Vijender Singh. Vijender Singh of Bhiwani in Haryana won the bronze medal in the middleweight category at the Beijing Olympic Games of 2008, becoming the first boxer from India ever to win an Olympic medal, and he later received the Arjuna and Padma Shri honours. Option A is wrong because Mary Kom's Olympic bronze came four years later, at London in 2012, which made her the first Indian woman boxer to win an Olympic medal, though not the first Indian boxer. Option C is wrong because Lovlina Borgohain won her bronze medal at the Tokyo Games held in 2021. Option D is wrong because Nikhat Zareen is known for her world championship gold medals rather than for an Olympic medal, and she came into the national side long after 2008.

The correct answer is B, Gukesh Dommaraju. Gukesh, from Chennai, won the Candidates Tournament in 2024 and then beat the defending champion Ding Liren of China in the title match held at Singapore later the same year, taking the crown at the age of eighteen and becoming the youngest undisputed world champion in the history of the game. He was the second Indian to hold the classical world title, after Viswanathan Anand. Option A is wrong because R Praggnanandhaa, though he reached the final of the FIDE World Cup in 2023, has not won the world championship match. Option C is wrong because Arjun Erigaisi is among the strongest Indian players by rating but has not played a title match. Option D is wrong because Vidit Gujrathi is an Olympiad medallist rather than a world champion.

The correct answer is B, Wrestling. The half nelson is a wrestling hold in which one arm is passed under the opponent's armpit from behind and the hand is placed on the back of the neck, giving the wrestler leverage to turn the opponent over and work towards a pin; using both arms in this way makes it a full nelson. Option A is wrong because boxing's vocabulary is built on punches and stances such as the jab, hook, uppercut, clinch and southpaw. Option C is wrong because shooting terms describe targets and positions, namely bullseye, sighter, prone, kneeling, trap and skeet. Option D is wrong because judo, though also a grappling sport, has Japanese names for its techniques such as ippon, seoi nage, osoto gari and shiai, and the nelson is not among them.

The correct answer is A, Viswanathan Anand. The award, instituted in 1991 and now named the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna, went in its very first year to the chess Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand, who had turned Grandmaster three years earlier and was then rising rapidly in world chess. He was later honoured with the Padma Shri, the Padma Bhushan and the Padma Vibhushan. Option B is wrong because Kapil Dev, who led India to the cricket World Cup in 1983, received the Arjuna Award and the Padma Bhushan but not the first Khel Ratna. Option C is wrong because the athlete PT Usha, despite her Asian Games record, was honoured with the Arjuna Award and the Padma Shri. Option D is wrong because the tennis player Leander Paes received the Khel Ratna later in the decade.