Sports GK Mixed Quiz: Set 28

The correct answer is C, Annapurna I. Annapurna I, 8,091 metres high and the lowest of the fourteen eight-thousanders, was climbed in 1950 by a French expedition led by Maurice Herzog, three years before Everest; it remains one of the most dangerous of the fourteen. Option A is wrong because Everest, though the highest, was first climbed in 1953. Option B is wrong because K2 was first climbed in 1954 by an Italian expedition. Option D is wrong because Nanga Parbat was first climbed in 1953 by Hermann Buhl, who made the final stretch alone and without oxygen. The sequence worth remembering is Annapurna in 1950, Everest and Nanga Parbat in 1953, K2 in 1954 and Kangchenjunga in 1955. Annapurna I is also the most dangerous of the fourteen peaks relative to the number of ascents, which is why the 1950 climb is remembered as a landmark in mountaineering.

The correct answer is A, Chamonix in France. The first Winter Olympic Games were held at Chamonix in the French Alps in 1924, the same year as the Paris Summer Olympics, and were recognised retrospectively by the International Olympic Committee as the first Winter Games. Option B is wrong because St Moritz in Switzerland hosted the second Winter Games in 1928 and hosted them again in 1948. Option C is wrong because Lake Placid in the United States hosted the third Winter Games in 1932 and hosted them again in 1980. Option D is wrong because Oslo in Norway hosted the Winter Games of 1952; Norway is instead remembered as the country that leads the all-time Winter Olympic medal table. Until 1992 the Winter and Summer Games fell in the same year, and the cycle was shifted by two years so that Lillehammer followed Albertville after only two seasons.

The correct answer is B, Argentina, which declared pato its national sport in 1953; the game is played by riders who must carry a handled ball and throw it through a vertical ring. Option A is wrong because Brazil has declared no such national sport, football being simply the game of the country by popular usage and capoeira its best known traditional art. Option C is wrong because Mexico's official national sport is charreria, the contest of horsemanship ridden by charros, which is itself a frequently asked answer and sits next to pato because both are mounted. Option D is wrong because Chile's official national sport is Chilean rodeo, in which two riders work a steer along a padded wall. Learning these three South American answers together, pato for Argentina, charreria for Mexico and rodeo for Chile, settles a whole group of questions.

The correct answer is B, James Naismith. Naismith, a physical education instructor in Springfield in the United States, devised basketball in 1891 as an indoor game for the winter months, using two peach baskets fixed above the floor; a team plays five players on court. Option A is wrong because William G. Morgan invented volleyball, in 1895, also in the United States, and the two names are deliberately offered together because the games and the years are neighbours. Option C is wrong because Walter Camp is remembered for shaping American football, not basketball. Option D is wrong because Pierre de Coubertin revived the Olympic Games, founding the International Olympic Committee in 1894 and seeing the first modern Games held at Athens in 1896; he invented no sport. The safe pair to memorise is Naismith with basketball and 1891, Morgan with volleyball and 1895.

The correct answer is B, Darjeeling. The Himalayan Mountaineering Institute was founded at Darjeeling in West Bengal in 1954, the year after the first ascent of Everest, and Tenzing Norgay served as its first director of field training. Option A is wrong because Uttarkashi in Uttarakhand is the home of the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering. Option C is wrong because Manali in Himachal Pradesh houses the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Mountaineering and Allied Sports. Option D is wrong because Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir has the Jawahar Institute of Mountaineering; a fifth institute, the National Institute of Mountaineering and Adventure Sports, is at Dirang in Arunachal Pradesh, and the five are a standard matching set. The institute was founded in the year after the first ascent of Everest, as part of the Indian response to that climb, and it trains climbers from across the country.

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, Jabalpur. British officers stationed there are credited with adding coloured balls to the existing game of black pool in 1875, and the new game took the name snooker, then army slang for a first-year cadet. Option A is wrong because Pune, then Poona, is the origin of badminton, which was for years called the game of Poona; the two Indian origin stories are regularly swapped in options. Option C is wrong because Mhow, a cantonment in Madhya Pradesh, has no claim in this topic, and Option D is wrong because Meerut is remembered for the beginning of the revolt of 1857 rather than for any sport. India is thus credited with four origins worth memorising: chess from chaturanga, badminton from Poona, modern polo from Manipur and snooker from Jabalpur.

The correct answer is A, Asiatic lion. Savaj was a cub of the Asiatic lion, and it was chosen as the mascot of the Gujarat edition of 2022 because the Gir forest of Gujarat is the only place in the world where that subspecies survives in the wild, making the lion the obvious emblem of the host state. Option B, the Indian bison or gaur, was the basis of Moga, the mascot of the Goa edition of 2023, since the gaur is the state animal of Goa. Option C, the great hornbill, was the basis of Ammu, the mascot of the Kerala edition of 2015, the great hornbill being the state bird of Kerala. Option D, the snow leopard, is a Himalayan animal and has not been a National Games mascot; at Uttarakhand in 2025 the mascot was Mauli, a Himalayan monal, which is the state bird. The general rule that answers all such questions is that the mascot comes from the wildlife of the host state.

The correct answer is B, Beijing. Beijing hosted the Summer Olympics in 2008 and the Winter Olympics in 2022, becoming the first city to have held both. Option A is wrong because Tokyo has hosted the Summer Games twice, in 1964 and 2021, but never the Winter Games; Japan's Winter Games were at Sapporo in 1972 and Nagano in 1998. Option C is wrong because London has hosted the Summer Olympics three times, in 1908, 1948 and 2012, and has never hosted a Winter Games. Option D is wrong because Pyeongchang in South Korea hosted only the Winter Games of 2018; the Summer Games in that country were at Seoul in 1988. For comparison, Japan has hosted both a Summer Games, at Tokyo, and Winter Games, at Sapporo and Nagano, but never both in the same city, which is the point the question turns on.

The correct answer is B, Ranjitsinhji. Kumar Shri Ranjitsinhji, the prince of Nawanagar who played for England in the 1890s and was famous for the leg glance, gave his name to the trophy for the national first-class championship, which was first played in the 1934 and 1935 season and was won by Bombay. Option A, Duleepsinhji, was his nephew and also played for England; the zonal first-class tournament, the Duleep Trophy, is named after him, and the two names are deliberately placed together in this question. Option C, Vijay Hazare, has the domestic one-day tournament named after him, while the domestic Twenty20 tournament carries the name of Syed Mushtaq Ali. Option D, C.K. Nayudu, has the Board's lifetime achievement award and the under-twenty-three tournament named after him. The Irani Cup, first played in 1959 and 1960, is contested between the Ranji Trophy champion and the Rest of India.

The correct answer is A, Manipur, where the horseback game sagol kangjei was played and from which British planters and officers took up the modern form; the earliest clubs of the modern game were founded at Silchar and Calcutta. Option B is wrong because Assam, although Silchar lies there and its club is among the oldest in the world, is not the home of the parent game itself, which makes this the most tempting wrong answer in the set. Option C is wrong because Rajasthan has a long and famous polo tradition in its princely states but did not give the game its origin. Option D is wrong because Punjab is associated with kabaddi and with wrestling rather than with the beginnings of polo. A polo team has four players a side, a figure asked in the same breath as the origin.

The correct answer is C, Rio de Janeiro 2016. Golf had been played at the Olympic Games of 1900 in Paris and 1904 in St Louis and then dropped out; it came back at Rio in 2016 as a 72-hole stroke play competition for men and for women, with sixty players in each field. Option A is wrong because Beijing 2008 added no golf event. Option B is wrong because London 2012 had no golf either, although the decision to restore the sport had already been taken by then. Option D is wrong because Tokyo 2020, held in 2021, was the second Games of the modern run, and it is remembered in India for Aditi Ashok finishing fourth in the women's event. The sport is represented at the Games by the International Golf Federation.

The correct answer is A, Shiva Keshavan. Shiva Keshavan, from Himachal Pradesh, competed in the luge at six Winter Olympic Games beginning in 1998 and won titles at the Asian level, which makes him India's best known winter Olympian. Option B is wrong because Mohammad Arif Khan is an alpine skier from Kashmir, remembered for qualifying in two events at the Beijing Games of 2022, not for the luge. Option C is wrong because Jeremy Bujakowski was the alpine skier who represented India at its first Winter Olympics in 1964 at Innsbruck. Option D is wrong because that name is not associated with Indian winter sport. India has never won a Winter Olympic medal. Keshavan built his own training arrangements in the absence of a luge track in India, and he has since worked to develop the sport in the Himalayan states.

The correct answer is A, the ribbon. Rhythmic gymnastics combines dance and gymnastic movement with a hand apparatus, and the five recognised apparatus are the rope, the hoop, the ball, the clubs and the ribbon; a routine is performed on a floor area to music, and the apparatus must be kept in continuous motion. B is wrong because the pommel horse is a fixed apparatus in men's artistic gymnastics, a padded body with two handles on which the gymnast swings his legs. C is wrong because the still rings, two rings hanging from straps, are also a men's artistic apparatus and test upper-body strength and control. D is wrong because the horizontal bar, often called the high bar, is the last of the men's six apparatus. All three wrong options come from the men's artistic list, which is the usual way this question is set, so keep the rhythmic five and the artistic lists separate in memory.

The correct answer is B, Sri Lanka, which declared volleyball its national sport in 1991. Option A is wrong for the year rather than the game, because Nepal also made volleyball its national sport, but in 2017; where a question gives a year, the year decides between these two countries, and where it does not, the stem usually names the country. Option C is wrong because the Maldives has declared no national sport of this kind, football being the popular game there. Option D is wrong because the national game of Bangladesh is kabaddi, locally called ha-du-du. The wider lesson of this question is that a declaration carries a date, so the national sports worth tying to years are Argentina with pato in 1953, Sri Lanka with volleyball in 1991, Canada by its Act of 1994, Colombia with tejo in 2000 and the Philippines with arnis in 2009.

The correct answer is A, Koneru Humpy, who earned the Grandmaster title in 2002 as a teenager and went on to win the world women's rapid chess championship in 2019. Option B is wrong because S. Vijayalakshmi was a pioneer of Indian women's chess and the first Indian woman to become an International Master, a title one step below Grandmaster. Option C is wrong because Tania Sachdev holds the International Master and Woman Grandmaster titles and is well known as a player and commentator, but she is not the first Grandmaster. Option D is wrong because Harika Dronavalli, a multiple world championship bronze medallist, took the Grandmaster title after Humpy. Note the trap in this chapter: the Woman Grandmaster title is different from the open Grandmaster title, and questions turn on that difference.

The correct answer is B, 8,848.86 metres. In December 2020 Nepal and China announced a jointly agreed new height for Mount Everest of 8,848.86 metres, after separate surveys from the two sides. Option A is wrong because 8,848 metres was the figure accepted earlier, from the Survey of India measurement, and is the value printed in older textbooks; a question will often ask for the revised figure precisely to separate the two. Option C is wrong because 8,611 metres is the height of K2, the second highest mountain in the world. Option D is wrong because 8,586 metres is the height of Kangchenjunga, the third highest in the world and the highest peak in India. The revised measurement followed separate surveys by the two countries, undertaken partly because the earthquake of 2015 raised the question of whether the summit had moved.

The correct answer is C, field hockey. The Indian men's hockey team won the gold medal at the Amsterdam Games of 1928 and then kept winning, taking eight Olympic golds in all, in 1928, 1932, 1936, 1948, 1952, 1956, 1964 and 1980. The six in a row from 1928 to 1956 remain unmatched in the sport, and Dhyan Chand, who played in the first three, is remembered as its greatest player of the age.

Option A, shooting, gave India its first individual gold much later, when Abhinav Bindra won the 10 metre air rifle at Beijing in 2008. Option B, wrestling, gave India its first individual medal after independence through K. D. Jadhav in 1952, but that was a bronze. Option D, athletics, produced India's earliest Olympic medals of any kind, the two silvers Norman Pritchard won in 1900, again not gold. Read whether the question asks for the first medal, the first gold or the first individual gold.

The correct answer is B, Chaturanga. The name means the four limbs, standing for the four divisions of the ancient army, elephants, chariots, cavalry and infantry, which survive as the bishop, the rook, the knight and the pawn of the modern board. Option A is wrong because pachisi is the old race game played on a cross-shaped cloth, the ancestor of ludo rather than of chess. Option C is wrong because gilli danda is a stick-and-peg street game with no connection to the board. Option D is wrong because kangjei, more fully sagol kangjei, is the Manipuri horseback game from which modern polo grew; it belongs to the polo answer in this same topic. From chaturanga the game travelled to Persia as chatrang and reached Europe through the Arab world, the Persian phrase for a cornered king giving the word checkmate.

The correct answer is A, British Empire Games. That was the official name from the first edition at Hamilton in 1930 until 1950. The title then changed with the politics of the Commonwealth: British Empire and Commonwealth Games from 1954, British Commonwealth Games from 1970 and simply the Commonwealth Games from 1978.

Option B, Empire Olympic Games, has never been an official name of the meet. Option C, the Friendly Games, is a popular nickname and not a formal title, so it is wrong for a question that asks what the Games were known as when they began. Option D, Pan-Britannic Games, is close to the wording of the original 1891 proposal by John Astley Cooper for a Pan-Britannic festival, but that festival was never held under that name, which makes this the most attractive distractor in the set.