Sports GK Mixed Quiz: Set 25

The correct answer is B, 29 August. The day marks the birth anniversary of Major Dhyan Chand, the hockey player who was part of the Indian sides that won Olympic gold in 1928, 1932 and 1936, and it is the day on which the national sports awards are conferred at Rashtrapati Bhavan. The Fit India Movement was also launched on this date in 2019. Option A, 14 August, has no connection with sport in the Indian calendar. Option C, 5 September, is Teachers Day, observed on the birth anniversary of Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, and it is a common distractor because both are commemorative days built on a birth anniversary. Option D, 19 November, is National Integration Day. Candidates should link 29 August, Major Dhyan Chand, the sports awards and the Fit India Movement together as one cluster.

The correct answer is B, 1940. The competition had been held since 1924 under the name the All India Olympic Games, and at the Bombay edition of 1940 it was renamed the National Games, which it has remained ever since. Option A, 1924, is the year of the first edition at Lahore, when the older name was still in use, so it marks the founding and not the renaming. Option C, 1947, is the year of independence and is offered because a change of national name seems natural at that moment, but the renaming had already taken place seven years earlier. Option D, 1985, is a real milestone for a different reason: the New Delhi edition of that year reorganised the Games on the pattern of the Olympic Games, bringing in a host state, a torch relay, a mascot and a far wider list of disciplines, but it did not change the name. Keep the three dates in order: 1924 founded, 1940 renamed, 1985 restructured.

The correct answer is A, Norman Pritchard. Pritchard was the only competitor representing India at the Paris Games of 1900 and he finished second in both the 200 metres sprint and the 200 metres hurdles, so India's first two Olympic medals were silver and came in athletics. Option B, K. D. Jadhav, won a wrestling bronze at Helsinki in 1952, which was the first individual Olympic medal for independent India but not India's first medal. Option C, Dhyan Chand, was part of the hockey teams that won gold in 1928, 1932 and 1936, so his first medal came twenty-eight years after Pritchard's. Option D, Milkha Singh, never won an Olympic medal; he finished fourth in the 400 metres at Rome in 1960. Candidates must keep the three dates apart: 1900 for the first medals, 1928 for the first gold and 1952 for the first individual medal after independence.

The correct answer is C, the West Indies. On 25 June 1983 India, led by Kapil Dev, bowled out the West Indies for 140 while defending a modest total of 183, and won the Prudential World Cup against a side that had won the first two editions in 1975 and 1979. Mohinder Amarnath was named player of the match in the final and in the semi-final against England. Option A, Australia, had been beaten by India in the group stage of that tournament but did not reach the final. Option B, England, was the host and lost to India in the semi-final at Old Trafford. Option D, Pakistan, lost its semi-final to the West Indies. Two details from the same campaign are asked almost as often: Kapil Dev's unbeaten 175 against Zimbabwe at Tunbridge Wells, and Madan Lal and Mohinder Amarnath taking three wickets each in the final.

The correct answer is C, 2018. Khelo India was launched in 2018 by merging earlier grassroots sports programmes into a single national scheme, and its first competition, the Khelo India School Games, was held at New Delhi in January of that year. From the following year the event was renamed the Khelo India Youth Games. Option A, 2014, is the year the Target Olympic Podium Scheme was launched, which is the commonest confusion in this question since both are flagship sports schemes. Option B, 2016, matches no landmark in the scheme history. Option D, 2020, is the year the first Khelo India University Games and the first Khelo India Winter Games were held, but the parent scheme was already two years old by then. Keep 2014 for TOPS and 2018 for Khelo India.

The correct answer is B, Arjun Atwal. Atwal won the Wyndham Championship in 2010 and so became the first golfer from India to win on the PGA Tour, the premier professional circuit of the United States. Option A is wrong because Jeev Milkha Singh's firsts are different ones: he was the first Indian to earn a European Tour card and the first to enter the top fifty of the world rankings, and he topped the Asian Tour Order of Merit twice. Option C is wrong because Anirban Lahiri's distinction is being the first Indian selected for the Presidents Cup, in 2015, the year he won the Asian Tour Order of Merit. Option D is wrong because Jyoti Randhawa won the Asian Tour Order of Merit in 2002 but no PGA Tour event. Each name carries its own first, so learn them as pairs.

The correct answer is B, Amsterdam 1928. India sent a hockey team to the Olympic Games for the first time in 1928 and won the gold medal without conceding a single goal in the tournament, beginning a run of six successive hockey golds that ran through 1932, 1936, 1948, 1952 and 1956. Option A, Antwerp 1920, is the Games at which India first sent a team of athletes, but hockey was not part of that programme for India and no medal was won. Option C, Los Angeles 1932, and option D, Berlin 1936, were the second and third hockey golds, and 1936 is especially famous because Dhyan Chand captained the side. The examiner's trap is to offer 1920, the year of India's first team, in place of 1928, the year of India's first gold.

The correct answer is A, the Federation Internationale de Gymnastique, usually shortened to FIG. Founded in 1881, it is the oldest international sports federation in the world, older than the modern Olympic movement itself, and it has its headquarters at Lausanne in Switzerland. It governs artistic, rhythmic, trampoline, acrobatic and aerobic gymnastics and sets the code of points by which routines are scored. B is wrong because no body called the International Gymnastics Council exists; the name is invented to sound plausible. C is wrong for the same reason, and the mention of a single discipline is a clue, since the real federation covers them all. D is wrong because the International Weightlifting Federation, founded in 1905, governs weightlifting; it is the correct answer to the companion question and is offered here to catch a candidate who reads the two sports as one.

The correct answer is B, Target Olympic Podium Scheme. TOPS was launched in 2014 under the National Sports Development Fund and was thoroughly revamped in 2018. It identifies a small group of athletes judged capable of reaching the podium at the Olympic and Paralympic Games and funds each of them individually, covering a customised training plan, a foreign coach where required, international competition, equipment, sports science support and a monthly out-of-pocket allowance. Option A, Total Olympic Preparation Scheme, sounds plausible but is not the name of any scheme. Option C, Training of Professional Sportspersons, is invented and misses the Olympic focus that gives the scheme its name. Option D, Talent Oriented Promotion Scheme, describes the work of Khelo India rather than TOPS, since talent identification is a Khelo India vertical and TOPS begins where that search ends.

The correct answer is B, Mary Kom. She won the world amateur championship in 2002, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2018, six titles in all, which earned her the name Magnificent Mary, and she added an Olympic bronze in the fifty-one kilogram class at London in 2012. Option A is wrong because Lovlina Borgohain is a world championship bronze medallist and the winner of an Olympic bronze at Tokyo in 2020, not a six-time world champion. Option C is wrong because Nikhat Zareen is a world champion but with a smaller number of titles. Option D is wrong because L. Sarita Devi won the world title in 2006 and several Asian titles, but one world championship, not six. The number six with the name Mary Kom is the fact the paper wants.

The correct answer is C, Abhinav Bindra. Bindra won the men's 10 metre air rifle shooting event at Beijing in 2008, and it remains India's first individual Olympic gold medal; he had already become a world champion in the same event in 2006. Option A, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, won silver in double trap shooting at Athens in 2004, which was India's first individual Olympic silver, and he is the standard distractor because his medal also came in shooting. Option B, Sushil Kumar, won a wrestling bronze in 2008 and a silver in 2012, making him the first Indian with individual medals at two Games, but neither was gold. Option D, Neeraj Chopra, won gold in the javelin throw at Tokyo in 2020, India's first Olympic medal of any colour in athletics, but that came thirteen years after Bindra.

The correct answer is B, hockey. A penalty corner, also called a short corner, is awarded when a defender breaks a rule inside the striking circle or deliberately puts the ball out over the back line. The ball is pushed out from the back line, stopped at the top of the circle and then struck at the goal while the defenders wait behind their goal line, and it is the way a large share of goals in modern hockey are scored.

Option A, volleyball, uses terms such as service, smash, block, deuce and libero. Option C, basketball, uses dribble, pivot, free throw, rebound and dunk. Option D, badminton, uses smash, drop shot, let, deuce and shuttle. Bully, penalty stroke, astroturf, scoop and flick are the other words that belong with hockey.

The correct answer is B, 1961. The Arjuna Award was instituted in 1961 to recognise consistently outstanding performance by a sportsperson over a period of years, and it remains the standard recognition for a leading active athlete who has not won the country highest sporting honour. Option A, 1951, is the year of the first Asian Games, held at New Delhi, and is a frequent distractor in sports chronology questions. Option C, 1985, is the year the Dronacharya Award for coaches was instituted, so the two years are often swapped by candidates. Option D, 1991, is when the Khel Ratna, then called the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, was instituted as the highest honour. Remember the sequence: Arjuna in 1961, Dronacharya in 1985, Khel Ratna in the early 1990s and the Dhyan Chand lifetime award in 2002.

The correct answer is B, Rod Laver. The Australian won all four Majors in the same calendar year in 1962 as an amateur and did it again in 1969, in the second year of the Open Era, which no other man has matched. The main arena of the Australian Open in Melbourne is named the Rod Laver Arena in his honour.

Option A, Don Budge of the United States, was the first man ever to complete a calendar Grand Slam, in 1938, but he did it only once. Option C, Roger Federer, won twenty Major singles titles and held three of the four at once more than once, but never all four inside a single calendar year. Option D, Bjorn Borg, won the French Open and Wimbledon repeatedly but never played the Australian Open in his prime years and never won the US Open, so a calendar Slam was out of reach. Among women, Maureen Connolly in 1953, Margaret Court in 1970 and Steffi Graf in 1988 completed the feat once each.

The correct answer is B, weightlifting. Malleswari won a bronze medal in the 69 kilogram weight class at Sydney in 2000 and so became the first Indian woman to win any Olympic medal, which is why she is remembered as the Iron Lady of Indian sport. Option A, athletics, is wrong: P. T. Usha came closest for an Indian woman in athletics when she missed a bronze at Los Angeles in 1984 by a hundredth of a second, and the first Indian woman to win an Olympic athletics medal did not precede Malleswari. Option C, shooting, gave India its first individual gold through Abhinav Bindra, a man, in 2008. Option D, badminton, produced Saina Nehwal's bronze in 2012 and P. V. Sindhu's silver in 2016, both after Malleswari. Remember the year 2000 with weightlifting and Sydney.

The correct answer is C, 800 grams. The rules fix the men's javelin at a minimum of 800 grams with a length of about 2.6 to 2.7 metres, while the women's javelin weighs 600 grams and is shorter. A throw counts only if the metal tip strikes the ground first and the athlete stays behind the arc.

Option A, 600 grams, is the weight of the women's javelin and is the trap the question is built around. Option B, 700 grams, is not a competition weight in athletics at all. Option D, 1 kilogram, is the weight of the women's discus, so it belongs to a different event. Keep the four throwing weights in one line: shot put 7.26 kilograms for men and 4 for women, discus 2 kilograms and 1, hammer 7.26 kilograms and 4, javelin 800 grams and 600.

The correct answer is B, coaches of sportspersons. The Dronacharya Award was instituted in 1985 and honours coaches who have consistently produced outstanding athletes, the name being taken from the teacher of archery in the Mahabharata. Option A is wrong because active sportspersons are recognised by the Arjuna Award for sustained performance and by the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award for the most outstanding performance overall. Option C is wrong because there is no national sports award dedicated to journalists in this group of honours. Option D is wrong because corporates and other organisations that promote sport are recognised by the Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puraskar, instituted in 2009. The clean way to remember the set is players to Arjuna, coaches to Dronacharya, retired players to the Dhyan Chand Award and organisations to the Protsahan Puraskar.

The correct answer is B, hockey. Dhyan Chand played in the Indian hockey teams that won Olympic gold in 1928, 1932 and 1936, captaining the side in Berlin, and his control of the ball earned him the title of the wizard or the magician of hockey. His birthday, 29 August, is observed every year as National Sports Day, the occasion on which the national sports awards are conferred, and the highest of those awards now carries his name as the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award. Option A, football, belongs to names such as Syed Abdul Rahim and Chuni Goswami. Option C, wrestling, is the sport of K. D. Jadhav and Sushil Kumar. Option D, cricket, has no connection with him. The chain to remember is Dhyan Chand, hockey, 29 August and National Sports Day.

The correct answer is C, 1984. The Sports Authority of India was set up in 1984 as a society so that the stadiums and other facilities built for the Asian Games held at Delhi in 1982 would continue to be used for training rather than fall idle. It now runs the national centres of excellence, the regional training centres and the talent schemes, and it has its headquarters at New Delhi. Option A, 1961, is the year the coaching institute at Patiala, today the Netaji Subhas National Institute of Sports, was founded. Option B, 1982, is the year of the Asian Games at Delhi and of the creation of a separate Department of Sports, so it is the closest wrong answer. Option D, 2001, is the year of the second National Sports Policy. The order to remember is 1982 for the Department, 1984 for the Authority.

The correct answer is B, Prakash Padukone. Padukone won the All England Open in 1980, the oldest and at that time the most prestigious badminton tournament in the world, and he was also the first Indian to be ranked world number one in the men's game. Option A, Pullela Gopichand, won the same title in 2001 and so became only the second Indian to do it, which makes him the commonest wrong answer here; he later coached Saina Nehwal and P. V. Sindhu. Option C, Nandu Natekar, was the pioneering Indian player of the nineteen fifties and the first Indian to win an international badminton title, but not the All England. Option D, Syed Modi, was a national champion of the nineteen eighties. Fix the order in memory: Natekar as the pioneer, Padukone in 1980 and Gopichand in 2001.