Top 10 elite Indian athletes who have emerged from Khelo India Games

These sportsperson owe their rise to the government's premier sporting initiative.

Khelo India, the country's National Sports Development Programme, continues to nurture new talent in priority sporting disciplines at many levels, while also offering Rs 5 lakh a year in financial support for the next eight years.

In addition to fostering the youthful talent pool indicated below, the Khelo India initiative provides a veritable feast from which we can select the best. So, here we bring you the top 10 promising athletes who have emerged from Khelo India Games and also who we believe will be tomorrow's star athletes:

10.  Abhinav Shaw  (Shooting) 

In January of last year, Abhinav Shaw and Mehuli Ghosh won the 10 m air rifle mixed team event at the Khelo India Youth Games. This makes him the youngest gold medalist at the Khelo Games. Abhinav has never before competed internationally and is now preparing for the India trials (youth, junior, and senior categories). The young shooter has nevertheless garnered national notice.

Abhinav Shaw was born in 2008, not long after India won its first individual gold medal in shooting at the Olympics, and was named after Abhinav Bindra, the nation's best rifle shooter. He was unaware that his job path was decided at birth. Rupesh Kumar Shaw gave his son the name Abhinav after the Indian marksman Abhinav Bindra and pushed him to seek a career as a marksman.

He has been training under Joydeep Karmakar for three years. In addition to his gold medal from the previous year, he has two national titles in 10m air rifle, including gold in the junior and young mixed team competition alongside Mehuli Ghosh in November 2018. 

9. Philip Maheswaran Tabitha (Athletics)

Tabitha brought honor to the nation by winning gold at the third Asian Youth Athletics Championships in Hong Kong a year ago. In 13.86 seconds, the youth finished first in the 100-meter hurdles race. Tabitha was invited to represent her country in one of the most renowned continental contests for the first time at the age of sixteen, after three years of constant national success. 

Tabitha used to compete in all events, but her coach persuaded her to focus on the events in which she excelled: hurdles and long jump. Due to her exceptional performance with Khelo India, she was selected for the Asian Youth Athletics Championship.

Tabitha, sixteen years old, was the only medalist in the Asian Youth Athletics Championships when India's senior team won two gold medals at the Asian Athletics Championships. Tabitha won gold in the 100-meter hurdles with a personal best timing of 13.86 seconds and gold in the long jump with a jump of 5.80 meters. 

8. Swadesh Mondal (Swimming)

 At the 2018 National Aquatic Championship, Swadesh Mondal, a teenage swimmer from Delhi, won gold medals and set national records in all five events he competed in. At the most recent Khelo India Youth Games in Pune, he won a gold medal for the relay. Swadesh initially had no intention of becoming a professional swimmer, but he fell in love with the sport almost immediately and has never looked back. In 2014, he earned three gold medals at his first state-level competition, and in 2015, he won his first national medal. 

7. Vikas Yadav (Javelin Throw)

Vikas began by practicing with improvised javelins made of wood and aluminum, which frequently shattered on impact with the ground. The 17-year-old, however, did not let the odds beat him. 

He won gold at the KISG with a throw of 75.02 meters, bringing him one step closer to realizing his dream of representing India at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games. 

Vikas, from Kaulapur village in Uttar Pradesh's Badohi district, had a humble beginning in the sport. "My parents and older brother were always there for me. Collector Singh, my initial coach, was also very helpful. He purchased my first pair of spikes for me "He stated. 

Vikas' story changed when his current coach, Rakesh Rawat, noticed him. "This KISG gold is my response to the critics," Vikas explained.

6.  Pooja (Shot put)

Pooja from Haryana took gold in the girls' shot put (12.88m) and discus throw (41.01m) at the KISG, following in the footsteps of other state champion female throwers. 

Her javelin-throwing sister inspired this ninth-grade student at the Government Girls Senior Secondary School in Charkhi, Haryana. Unlike her sister, she began with discuss throw before moving on to shot put. Sandra Perkovic, a two-time Olympic and World champion, inspires Pooja. She aspires to be like the 27-year-old Croatian.

 5. Komalika Bari  (Archery)

This year, 17-year-old Komalika Bari earned India's third female global champion at the World Youth and Cadet Archery Championship in Spain. In 2006, Paltan Hansda of Jharkhand was the first to accomplish this accomplishment. Following Deepika Kumari's victory in 2009, Komalika became India's third Under-18 world champion in recurve.

She made her international debut earlier this year at the South Asian Championship and has since been named to the Indian team for elite tournaments like World Cups in Turkey and Germany, World Championships in the Netherlands, and the Tokyo Olympic test event. 

4. Manush Shah  (Table Tennis)

Manush Shah of Gujarat won the Under-21 table tennis event in the Khelo India Youth Games. He won a silver medal (in cadet boys) at the International Table Tennis Federation-hosted 2016 India Junior and Cadet Open Table Tennis Championships (ITTF). He has also been nominated to India's sub-junior table tennis team for the 22nd Asian Junior and Cadet Table Tennis Championship. 

3. Anshu Malik (Wrestling)

The 21-year-old wrestler holds two medals from the Asian Cadet Championship. In addition, she is the junior Asian weight class champion at 57 kg. Despite the abundance of male and female role models for Indian juvenile wrestlers, Malik has always been drawn to the Japanese pantheon's mythical greats.

Malik approached the wrestling mat in an Indian fashion, even though most of her role models are from different nations. Her uncle Pawan competed for India in the SAFF Games, while her father Dharamvir wrestled for the CRPF before retiring to support their daughter. Anshu Malik recently defeated Pooja Dhanda, a World Championship medalist, to gain a spot on the Indian team for Saturday's Asian Championships.

2. Manu Bhaker (Shooting)

Breaking two long-standing national records in less than a month is impressive for someone who has only been shooting for a little over two years. However, when Manu Bhaker, 20, is asked about it, she laughs it off. "It just so happens" (records are broken). I'm not thinking about them. "People tell me later that I broke a record," Manu said after winning gold in the 10m air pistol event. She not only won gold but also broke two junior national records in less than an hour. 

Prior to the shooting, she was a national-level competitor in a variety of sports, which is a little-known fact. Manu in 2018 qualified for all ISSF World Cups at the senior and junior levels, as well as the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games and the 2018 Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires. 

1.  Jeremy Lalrinnunga (Weightlifting)

CWG 2022’s latest sensation from Mizoram has to be featured on this list. The 19-year-old Jeremy is one of the most promising prospects. The Mizoram weightlifter began 2019 with a silver medal after lifting 131 kilograms in the snatch and 157 kg in the clean and jerk at the EGAT Trophy. At the Asian Championships, he broke both the Youth World and Asian records by lifting a total of 297 kilograms, including 134 kilograms in the snatch and 162 kilograms in the clean and jerk.

In 2020, he also earned silver medals at the Asian Youth Championship and Asian Junior Championship. He placed ninth in Group B with a lift of 296 kg but left the World Championships empty-handed. To put another feather on his cap he also won a gold medal in the CWG 2022.

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