SPORTS JULY 2011

SPORTS JULY 2011

• Five-time national champion Vidya Pillai Tilakraj of Tamil Nadu defeated Arantxa Sanchis 3-1 (53-34, 43-53, 92-15, 54-15) in the final of the National billiards and snooker championship on 25 July 2011.
  
• America’s Michael Phelps won gold in the 200m butterfly event in the World Swimming Championship in Shanghai on 27 July 2011.
  
• Uruguay won the Copa Américafoot ball cup for a record 15th time on 24 July 2011 by defeating Paraguay, 3-0, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. With the victory, Uruguay became the competition's most successful team.
  
• Former India striker Shabbir Ali, who took up full-time coaching after retirement on 26 June 2011, became the first footballer to win the prestigious Dhyan Chand award as recognition for his lifetime achievement in sports.
  
• Former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was honoured posthumously with the highest Bangladesh award — the Bangladesh Swadhinata Sammanona (Bangladesh Freedom Honour ) on 25 July 2011. The award was meant to honour Indira Gandhi’s for her outstanding contributions to Bangladesh's Liberation War fought in 1971. The award was received by her daughter-in-law Sonia Gandhi who visited Bangladesh at the invitation of Sheikh Hasina.
  
• The Union Sports Ministry had announced the Arjuna and Dronacharya awards for the year 2010. The Dinesh Khanna-led Arjuna award panel had recommended increasing the number of Arjuna awards to 19 instead of the normal 15. The selection of cricketer Zaheer Khan and Ashish Kumar, who bagged the first medals for the country in gymnastics in the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games, Swimmer Virdhawal Khade, Swimmer( paralympic category)Prasanta Karmakar , The captains of the men's and women's kabaddi teams, Rakesh Kumar and Tejaswini Bai, shooter Tejaswini Sawant, Archer Rahul Banerjee, boxer Suranjoy Singh, Greco-Roman wrestler Ravinder Singh, weightlifter K. Ravi Kumar, Hockey captain Rajpal Singh, badminton ace Jwala Gutta,volleyball player Sanjay Kumar, footballer Sunil Chetri, and wushu silver medallist in the Asian Games, Sandhya Rani Devi, were the others to be chosen for the Arjuna award.Five coaches were chosen for the Dronacharya award. The awardees are as follows: Ram Phal (wrestling), Devendra Kumar Rathore (gymnastics), I. Venkateswara Rao (boxing), Rajender Singh (hockey) and Kunthal Kumar Roy (athletics).Yashvir Singh, long-time coach of world champion and Olympic bronze medalist wrestler Sushil Kumar, withdrew his nomination on 21 July evening thereby clearing the route for Ram Phal, coach of Yogeshwar Dutt.
  
• Ace Indian shooter Gagan Narang,who won four gold medals at last year's Commonwealth Games, is selected for the country's highest sporting honour – the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna. He also won the bronze medal in the World Championships last year. Gagan becomes the fifth shooter to be nominated for the Khel Ratna award which is the highest honour given for achievement in sports. He won two silver medals in the Asian Games in Guangzhou and is the first shooter from India to qualify for the London Olympics.
  
• The International Cricket Council (ICC) released the list of All time Greatest Test team. The ICC’s list includes four Indian cricketers namely- batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar, 1983 World Cup-winning captain Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar and Virender Sehwag. Sunil Gavaskar and Virender Sehwag were included for opening slot while Indian batting maestro, Sachin Tendulkar found the place in middle order. Four Australians, two West Indians and one Pakistani also made it to Peoples' Dream XI as more than a quarter of million people voted on ICC's official website.Sir Don Bradman, Adam Gilchrist, Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Brian Lara, Curtly Ambrose and Wasim Akram are the other players in the list.
  
• Japan lifted the women's football World Cup by defeating USA in a dramatic final in Frankfurt, Germany. Homare Sawa, is the captain for the team Japan.
  
• Karnataka's Uma Devi Nagaraj on 21 July deafeted the defending champion Meenal Thakur in a final, and won the women's billiards title at the Hash10-National championships in Chennai. This was Uma Devi's third National billiards title. She had earlier won in 2002 and 2008.
  
• The Indian trio of Deepika Kumari, Laishram Bombayla Devi and Chekrovolu Swuro settled for a silver medal in the Archery World Championship at Turin on 10 July 2011. This was the best finish by the women in the history of the Championships. Their previous best was a fourth place at Madrid in 2005, where they had lost to Russia in the bronze medal play-off. 
• Fernando Alonso of Spain won the formula one British Grand Prix. The 29-year-old Spaniard had in the past won the British race for Renault in 2006. The victory marked Alonso’s 27th career victory and it drew him closer to three-time winner of the British Grand Prix, Jackie Stewart’s record world champion Vettel finished second.
  
• Jack Nicklaus was chosen as the greatest golf player of the last 100 years by the Golf monthly magazine’s reader’s poll. Nicklaus, whose 18 major titles are a record, won 58 per cent of the votes from a list of 20 golfers with nearest challenger Tiger Woods who won 16 percent. Third in the list was Spanish star Seve Ballesteros who won 8 per cent vote. Woods, won the greatest shot of the last 100 years for his chip-in from beside the 16th green at August National as he won the 2005 Masters.
  
• The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced on 6 July 2011 that Pyeongchang(South Korea) would be the host city for the 2018 Winter Olympics.Pyeongchang is the ski resort area located 180km east of Seol. The Winter Olympics will likely put South Korea on the map as a winter sports hot spot. Only two of 21 previous Winter Games have been in Asia after Japan hosted the event in Sapporo in 1972 and again in Nagano in 1998.
  
• Fabiano Caruana of Italy by defeating Filipino Wesley emerged as the winner of the AAI International Grandmasters chess tournament on 2 July 2011.india’s Sasikiran, finished runner-up in this tournament and another Indian Parimarjan Negi, was positioned on fifth.
  
• The ATP rankings released conferred the World No.1 position Novak Djokovic of Serbia who defeated Nadal in the Wimbledon final. His rise to the World No. 1 position was confirmed after he defeated Jo-Wilfred Tsonga in the Wimbledon semi-final. 
• The Sports Ministry sacked India's athletics coach, Yuri Ogrodnik of Ukrain. Sports Minister Ajay Maken asked Sports Authority of India, SAI, to immediately relieve coaches attached to the Indian athletes who failed in the Dope test. An inquiry was also ordered into the whole doping episode. Measures were being taken by the National Anti Dope Agency (NADA) to prevent the occurrence of dope in sports and the agency decided to increase the frequency of the dope tests. Seven of the eight athletes tested positive for methandienone or methandrostenolone in the dope tests conducted at the National Institute of Sports (NIS) in Patiala and the National Anti-Doping Agency approved the suspension of the guilty athletes. 
• Australian Michael Jack Nobbswas appointed India's new hockey coach for five-year period. He succeeded Spaniard Jose Brasa. Nobb is a 57-year-old from the part of Australia's Hockey team for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games. He also coached the Japan women's team. Nobbs' contract is set to run till the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, and his pay cheque is fixed to start at 10,000 Australian dollars per month. 
• Serbia's Novak Djokovic won his first Wimbledon title by defeating Rafael Nadal with 6-4 6-1 1-6 6-3. It was his 50th win in 51 matches and his fifth win over Nadal this year .He becomes the first Serbian man to win Wimbledon. It is his third Grand Slam title after two Australian Open victories. 
• Petra Kvitova won her first Grand Slam title by beating Maria Sharapova 6-3, 6-4 in the Wimbledon final. Kvitova was playing in her first major final and she is the first left-handed woman to win the Wimbledon title sinceMartina Navratilova in 1990. 
• American twins Bob and Mike Bryan won a record-tying 11th Grand Slam men’s doubles titletogether, beating Robert Lindstedt of Sweden and Horia Tecau of Romania 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 (2) in the Wimbledon final. The Bryan brothers won at Wimbledon for the second time and matched Mark Woodforde and Todd Woodbridge’s Open era record of 11 major titles. Kevita pesky(Chek republic) and Katarina Srebotnik(Slovekia) won the womens doubles title. In themixed doubles final event, Miljar(Australia) and Iveta Bensova(Chek republic) defeated Mahesh Bhupathi(india) and Velina Veniva(Russia).