Top five youngest Indian athletes at Asian Games 2023

This Asian Games 2023 list features five future female sports superstars of the country.

India has sent a contingent of 655 athletes to the Asian Games 2023. And with this, India has thus fielded the sixth-largest contingent of athletes by a nation in this year's continental showpiece. Only hosts China, and three other East Asian heavyweights — Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea — and the Southeast-Asian nation, Thailand, have fielded more athletes in the ongoing edition.

So far, the large contingent selected by the Indian Olympic Committee (IOC) has done well to be the sixth-best nation on the medals tally. Medals in shooting and rowing and the gold in Cricket and Equestrian have seen India stay ahead of the bigwigs like Thailand, Malaysia and Chinese Taipei.

In this article, however, we take a look at the five youngest Indian athletes from the lot. 

Savitha Shri B

Savitha Shri is a 16-year-old Indian woman Grandmaster (WGM). She is currently the World No. 2326 with an ELO rating of 2375 in the standard format of chess. She is also one of the only three Indians to have medalled at the World Rapid Championships. The other two being the all-time greats of the Indian Chess fraternity, Vishwanathan Anand and Koneru Humpy.

The youngster is part of the Indian women's chess team. She, along with Koneru Humpy, Harika Dronavalli, Rameshbabu Vaishali, and Vantika Agrawal, make the team, and the team events of Chess will begin on 29th September 2023.

Pooja 

Pooja, 16, has been the talk of Indian athletics ever since she made her debut. At her age, she has already become one of the best high jumpers in Asia. She finished seventh at the Asian Athletics Championships courtesy of her 1.75m high effort. She also became the national champion when she touched the 1.80m mark at the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneshwar in the month of June 2023.

Touted to be the future National Record holder, Pooja's best attempt came at the Asian U-20 Championships, when she jumped 1.82m high to win the silver medal. She will be taking the field on the 3rd of October when she participates in the final of the High Jump event.

Anahat Singh

Anahat Singh, 15 years old, has already made waves in the Indian sports fraternity through her stellar performances in the Commonwealth Games 2022 held in Birmingham last year. She has since then gone on to establish herself as one of the regular names in the list of Indian squash players competing in the events.

She has already started her journey at the Asian Games 2023, winning her game in the women's team tie against arch-rivals Pakistan and then against Nepal. Apart from being part of the Indian women's team, she will also be competing in the Mixed Doubles event at the Asian Games, partnering with 25-year-old Abhay Singh.

Hashika Ramachandra

Another 15-year-old female athlete from the Indian contingent is the swimmer who rose to fame through her exploits at the National Games earlier in Gujarat. She won seven medals in swimming, of which six were gold. Hashika Ramachandra, at her age, has already established herself as one of the best Asian swimmers in her category on the basis of her timings.

She has already competed in the 200m medley event, where she finished 16th with a timing of 2:28.29. She will also participate in the 4x100m medley relay with teammates Palak Joshi, Janhvi Choudhary and Vritti Agarwal. The women's relay team will have their race on the 29th of September.

Dhinidhi Desinghu

The youngest member of the Indian contingent again happens to be a budding swimmer, who has been unearthed at the National Games in Gujarat last year. Dhinidhi Desinghu, at just 13 years old, is the current 200m freestyle national champion.

Dhinidhi finished 12th overall in her heat of the 200m freestyle event, thus failing to qualify for the finals of Asian Games 2023. While her timing was three seconds slower than her personal best, the 13-year-old will come back with a lot of learnings and a lot of hope for the future.