Sports GK Mixed Quiz: Set 33

The correct answer is B, Pele. The Brazilian forward, whose full name was Edson Arantes do Nascimento, was part of the Brazil squads that won the World Cup in 1958, 1962 and 1970, and no other player has three winners' medals. Option A, Diego Maradona, led Argentina to the title in 1986 and to the final in 1990, but he won the trophy only once. Option C, Franz Beckenbauer of Germany, won the World Cup as captain in 1974 and later as manager in 1990, which makes him a different kind of double but not a three-time winning player. Option D, Johan Cruyff of the Netherlands, is counted among the finest footballers ever and won three European Cups with Ajax, yet he never won a World Cup; his Netherlands side lost the 1974 final. Pele was also called the Black Pearl and spent almost his whole club career with Santos.

The correct answer is B, P. T. Usha. Payyoli is her village in the Kozhikode district of Kerala, and the word Express was added for the speed that made her Asia's leading woman sprinter in the nineteen-eighties; she is also called the Golden Girl of India. Option A is wrong because Anju Bobby George is a long jumper and the first Indian to win a medal at a World Athletics Championship, and she carries no such nickname. Option C is wrong because Shiny Wilson, also from Kerala and a middle-distance runner of the same period, is a frequent distractor in this question. Option D is wrong because Hima Das, the sprinter from Assam who won gold at the World Under-20 Championships, is called Dhing Express after her village, a nickname built on the same pattern and often swapped with this one.

The correct answer is B, Singapore. The Youth Olympic Games were proposed by Jacques Rogge, then President of the International Olympic Committee, approved in 2007, and the first Summer edition was staged at Singapore in 2010 for athletes aged fifteen to eighteen. The event also carried a culture and education programme alongside the competitions, which remains a defining feature. Option A, Nanjing in China, hosted the second Summer edition in 2014, and is the distractor most often chosen. Option C, Buenos Aires, hosted the third Summer edition in 2018, which was the first Olympic event of any kind held in South America. Option D, Innsbruck in Austria, is the odd one out because it hosted the first Winter Youth Olympic Games in 2012, not a Summer edition. Fix the sequence in memory as Singapore 2010, Nanjing 2014 and Buenos Aires 2018 for summer, with Innsbruck 2012 beginning the winter series.

The correct answer is A, the 1982 Asian Games at New Delhi. Appu was the cheerful baby elephant created as the mascot of the ninth Asian Games, and the figure became so popular that an amusement park in Delhi was named after it. The same Games brought colour television to India and gave the capital the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. Option B is wrong because the mascot of the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi was Shera, a tiger, with the slogan Come Out and Play. Option C is wrong because the mascot of the 2011 Cricket World Cup was Stumpy, a young elephant with a cricket bat, a different animal character from a different event, and the two elephants are often mixed up. Option D is wrong because the mascot of the 2017 FIFA Under-17 World Cup was Kheleo, a clouded leopard chosen to represent the North East.

The correct answer is B, Berlin. At the World Athletics Championships held in Berlin in August 2009, Usain Bolt of Jamaica lowered his own world records to 9.58 seconds over 100 metres and 19.19 seconds over 200 metres, the two fastest times ever recorded. Option A, Beijing, is the obvious trap, because Bolt first stunned the world there at the 2008 Olympic Games, where he won both sprints and the relay, but those marks were slower than the Berlin times. Option C, London, hosted the 2012 Olympics, where Bolt retained his titles, and the 2017 World Championships, which were his last. Option D, Osaka, hosted the 2007 World Championships, a year before Bolt's rise, when Tyson Gay won the sprints. Bolt, nicknamed the Lightning Bolt, retired in 2017 with eight Olympic gold medals.

The correct answer is B, London. London has held the Summer Olympic Games three times, in 1908, 1948 and 2012, and shares that record with Paris, which hosted in 1900, 1924 and 2024. Option A is wrong because Tokyo has hosted twice, in 1964, the first Games in Asia, and in the 2020 edition that was postponed to 2021. Option C is wrong because Los Angeles has hosted twice so far, in 1932 and 1984, and has been awarded the Games of 2028, which would be its third. Option D is wrong because Athens has hosted twice, in 1896 and 2004. The trap here is Los Angeles, since candidates count the awarded 2028 edition as though it had already happened, so read whether the question asks about Games held or Games awarded.

The correct answer is B, fifteen to eighteen years. The International Olympic Committee set this band when it created the Youth Olympic Games so that the event would reach adolescents at the stage when they are choosing whether to continue in sport, and the age is counted as of the year of the Games. The competitions are deliberately shorter than those of the Olympics, several events use mixed teams drawn from different countries, and a culture and education programme runs beside the sport. Option A, twelve to fifteen, is below the entry age and belongs to no major international games. Option C, eighteen to twenty-one, is the band used in some age-group world championships but not here. Option D, under twenty-three, is the familiar rule of Olympic football and of several other under-23 tournaments, which is why it is offered as a distractor. The World University Games, by contrast, use a student status rule with an age band of roughly seventeen to twenty-five.

The correct answer is C, Wrestling. Khashaba Dadasaheb Jadhav won a bronze medal in freestyle wrestling in the bantamweight category at the Helsinki Games of 1952, the first individual Olympic medal won by an Indian for independent India; until then every Indian medal except Pritchard's two had come from the hockey team. A is wrong because India's first boxing medal came much later, Vijender Singh's bronze at Beijing in 2008. B is wrong because India's first weightlifting medal was Karnam Malleswari's bronze at Sydney in 2000. D is wrong because India's first shooting medal was Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore's silver at Athens in 2004. Wrestling has since become one of India's strongest Olympic sports, with eight medals in all, from Jadhav in 1952 to Aman Sehrawat in 2024.

The correct answer is B, Michael Phelps. The American swimmer competed at five Olympic Games and finished with 28 medals, of which 23 are gold, far ahead of anyone else in any sport. His eight golds at Beijing in 2008 are also the most won at a single Games. Option A, Carl Lewis, won nine Olympic golds in athletics, four of them in the long jump at four successive Games, a great haul but not the record. Option C, Larisa Latynina of the Soviet Union, held the overall record of eighteen Olympic medals in gymnastics from 1964 until Phelps passed it in 2012, and she remains the most decorated gymnast. Option D, Mark Spitz, won seven golds at Munich in 1972, the single-Games record that Phelps broke in Beijing. Phelps retired after the Rio Games of 2016.

The correct answer is B, Nanda Devi. Nanda Devi, 7,816 metres high, stands in Uttarakhand and is the highest peak lying wholly inside India. Option A is wrong because Kangchenjunga, 8,586 metres and the third highest mountain in the world, is the highest peak in India but lies on the boundary between Sikkim and Nepal, so it is not entirely within India; this is the distinction the question is testing, and the phrasing decides the answer. Option C is wrong because K2, 8,611 metres, is the second highest mountain in the world and lies in the Karakoram in the part of Kashmir under Pakistani control. Option D is wrong because Saltoro Kangri, in the Karakoram, is lower than Nanda Devi and also on a disputed boundary.

The correct answer is B, Kathmandu. The regional games of the subcontinent began in the Nepalese capital in 1984 under the name South Asian Federation Games, commonly shortened to SAF Games, and the shorter name South Asian Games was adopted in 2004. They are run by the South Asian Sports Council, formed in 1983, and the founding members were India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives, with Afghanistan admitted in 2004. Option A, Dhaka, hosted later editions but not the first. Option C, Colombo, has also hosted the Games, again not the opening edition. Option D, New Delhi, has never hosted this event; India's three turns were Kolkata in 1987, Chennai in 1995 and Guwahati with Shillong in 2016, and the Delhi distractor works only because the capital hosted the Asian Games and the Commonwealth Games. Remember the opening pair: Kathmandu and 1984.

The correct answer is C, Japan. Jigoro Kano founded judo in 1882 at the Kodokan in Tokyo, building a grappling sport of throws and holds out of the older jujitsu, and judo entered the Olympic programme at the Tokyo Games. Option A is wrong because Korea is the home of taekwondo, a striking art of kicks and punches that is also the national sport there; judo and taekwondo are the commonest pair of distractors in this question. Option B is wrong because China is associated with wushu and the kung fu traditions. Option D is wrong because Thailand is the home of muay thai, Thai boxing. Japan also gives karate, which grew in Okinawa, and sumo, its traditional national sport, so the three Japanese answers are worth keeping together.

The correct answer is A, Cassius Clay. Born Cassius Marcellus Clay in Louisville in the United States, he won the light heavyweight gold medal at the 1960 Rome Olympics, took the world heavyweight title from Sonny Liston in 1964 and changed his name to Muhammad Ali soon afterwards. He became world heavyweight champion three times, and his most famous fights are the Rumble in the Jungle against George Foreman at Kinshasa in 1974 and the Thrilla in Manila against Joe Frazier in 1975. Option B, Joe Frazier, was his great rival and a separate boxer who beat Ali in their first meeting in 1971. Option C, Sonny Liston, was the champion Ali defeated to win his first title. Option D, Sugar Ray Robinson, was an earlier American boxer often called the finest pound for pound fighter of all time. Ali was known as The Greatest.

The correct answer is A, Major Dhyan Chand. The award, instituted in 1991 to 1992 as the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna and first given to the chess player Viswanathan Anand, was renamed the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award in 2021 in honour of the hockey player who won Olympic gold with India in 1928, 1932 and 1936. Option B, Milkha Singh, is wrong; the great sprinter is commemorated in other ways but not in the name of this award. Option C, K. D. Jadhav, is wrong, although he was the first individual Olympic medallist of independent India, in wrestling at Helsinki. Option D, C. K. Nayudu, is wrong; the cricketer name is attached to a domestic cricket tournament instead. Note that a separate lifetime achievement award has carried the Dhyan Chand name since 2002.

The correct answer is C, Guwahati and Shillong. The twelfth edition of the South Asian Games was held in 2016 across two north-eastern cities, with Guwahati in Assam as the main venue and Shillong in Meghalaya hosting part of the programme, and India finished at the top of the medal table as it has in almost every edition. Options A and B are India's two earlier turns as host and are the natural traps: Kolkata staged the second edition in 1987 and Chennai, then Madras, the sixth in 1995. Option D, Pune and Mumbai, has not hosted this event, although Pune did host the Commonwealth Youth Games in 2008, which is why the name seems plausible. For the exam, carry three pairs in memory: Kolkata 1987, Chennai 1995 and Guwahati with Shillong 2016, and add that the thirteenth edition went to Nepal in 2019 at Kathmandu, Pokhara and Janakpur.

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.

The correct answer is C, 99.94. Bradman played 52 Test matches between 1928 and 1948 and scored 6,996 runs with 29 centuries, leaving him with an average of 99.94, a figure no batter has approached since. Famously, he needed only four runs in his final Test innings at The Oval in 1948 to finish with an average of exactly 100, and he was dismissed for nought. Options A, B and D are numbers close enough to look plausible, which is exactly how this question is set; 99.94 must be memorised as a figure, not reasoned out. Bradman was nicknamed The Don, and he is also remembered for the Bodyline series of 1932 and 1933, when England bowled fast and short at the leg side specifically to contain him. The Bradman average is one of the handful of cricket numbers that appear in every exam family.

The correct answer is A, FISU, the International University Sports Federation, known worldwide by its French initials. FISU was founded in 1949, has its headquarters at Lausanne in Switzerland, and runs both the Summer and the Winter World University Games along with a long list of World University Championships. The event was called the Universiade, a blend of university and olympiad, until it was renamed the FISU World University Games in 2020, and entry is limited to university students and recent graduates in an age band of roughly seventeen to twenty-five. Option B, FIFA, governs world football and nothing else. Option C, the IAAF, was the former name of the world body for athletics, now called World Athletics, and it conducts the World Athletics Championships. Option D, FIBA, is the international federation for basketball. The Games are frequently described as the biggest multi-sport event after the Olympics, a line examiners like to quote.

The correct answer is C, Montreal, 1976. At the Montreal Olympics, the fourteen-year-old Nadia Comaneci was awarded a perfect score of 10 on the uneven bars, the first such mark in Olympic gymnastics; the scoreboards of the day could not display it and showed 1.00 instead. She went on to win three golds at those Games. Option A, Mexico City in 1968, is remembered for the high altitude and for Bob Beamon's long jump. Option B, Munich in 1972, is remembered for Mark Spitz's seven swimming golds and for the attack on the Israeli team. Option D, Moscow in 1980, was the Games boycotted by the United States and several other countries; Comaneci competed there too and won two more golds, but the perfect 10 belongs to 1976. Attach her name firmly to Montreal.

The correct answer is A, Turin in Italy, which staged the first Summer Universiade in 1959 under the newly organised International University Sports Federation. The Winter series began the next year, in 1960, at Chamonix in France, so option B is the right city attached to the wrong series, and that swap is the usual way this question is made difficult. Option C, Tokyo, hosted the Summer Universiade of 1967 and the Olympic Games of 1964, and so looks convincing, but it did not open the series. Option D, Moscow, hosted the Summer Universiade of 1973 and the Olympic Games of 1980, and is offered for the same reason. The pair to memorise is therefore Turin 1959 for summer and Chamonix 1960 for winter, with the renaming to the FISU World University Games taking place in 2020 and Chengdu and the Rhine-Ruhr region hosting the Summer Games of 2023 and 2025.