Junior shuttlers drew mixed response for India on the opening day of the Asia Junior Badminton Championships here on Wednesday.

In the men’s singles affair, Kiran George, 16th seeded, survived narrowly in the first game before hammering his Malaysian opponent Chong King Lingin in the second game to register a 24-22, 21-16 victory.

However, in another men’s singles match, Aman Farogh Sanjay went down against tenth seed Indonesian, Karono Karono 16-21, 21-16, 17-21 after putting up a good fight.

But what had overshadowed other Indian wins was the men’s doubles match in which the two Manipuri boys — Manjit Singh and Dingku Singh — put up a wonderful resistance to overcome their Indonesian rivals Muhammad C. Chaniago and Helmi Abu Hanifa 22-20, 23-21.

Earlier in the women singles, Dipti Kutty, Medha Shashidharan and Kavipriya Selvam found easy opponents in their respective matches as the trio moved into the next round.

While India No.7 Dipti defeated Kazakhstan’s Aisha Zhumabek 21-18, 21-13, Medha thrashed Iya Gordeyeva, another shuttler from Kazakh, 21-9, 21-10.

On the other hand, Myanmar’s Seng Jar Nan failed to put up a fight before Kavipriya as she was hammered 5-21, 8-21 by the junior Indian.

In the women’s doubles match, Nafeesah Sara Siraj and Medha succumbed before China’s Guo Lizhi and Yijing Li 9-21, 18-21.

There was however, complete disappointment from the mixed doubles matches as India lost all the three affairs on Wednesday.

The first Indian pair comprising Srikrishna Sai Kumar and Srishti Jupudi failed to maintain their winning momentum as they lost to Indonesia’s Muhammad Juan Elgiffani and Windi Siti Mulyani 21-17, 13-21, 15-21.

In the second match, India’s Orijit Chaliha and Preerthi Konadam lost to Chinese Taipei’s Lin Yu Chieh and Cheng Yu Pei 15-21, 18-21.

Another Chinese Taipei pair — Wu Guan Xun/Teng Chun Hsun — gave India the third jolt as they registered a 21-17, 21-13 win over Edwin Joy and Nafeesah.

Two Indians – a ramp model and a student – are all geared up for an all-women South Pole expedition to be led by a septuagenarian Guinness World Record holder Briton Janice Meek starting end December, the duo said on Wednesday.

Madhabilata Mitra of Kolkata and Tanvi Buch from Mumbai, sitting alongside Meek, beamed with excitement while sharing the details of the expedition, christened “Polar Maidens”, with the media here.

Mitra, a ramp model, and mountaineering instructor seemed awestruck at the opportunity.

“I can’t believe that I am going to the land of igloos, sledges where the days and nights are six months long and I am overwhelmed.”

According to Mitra, an instructor at Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, Darjeeling, anybody can undertake such adventures if he or she has loads of self-belief.

“When our mind and soul guides us even physical pain seems to be nothing.”

Sharing her excitement, 24-year-old Buch said: “This is an unexpected opportunity and I just seized the chance as this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

A third-year student of Natural Resource Conservation in the University of British Columbia, she would be the youngest Indian to ski to the South Pole if she successfully completes it.

Meek, the 74-year-old adventurer, is “proud of herself to show that age is no barrier”. The other members of the five women team are Denise Martin from Canada, Ailene Crean from Ireland and Caroline Geraerts from Britain.

“Being the driest, windiest and coldest place on Earth, South Pole is the Holy Grail of explorers,” said Meek who has skied to the North Pole twice.

Geraerts is a breast cancer survivor and Crean is iconic explorer Tom Crean’s granddaughter.

About the training required for such a dangerous trek, Meek revealed:”If one can be on their feet for long and have a strong core, they can do it. Just eat well, exercise well and be determined.”

The team will train in Scotland in September.

“On December we will fly from South America and after reaching Antarctica we will be taken to a special camp called Union Glacier, and from there we will head for the magnetic pole. We will only leave our footprints and try to make it the greenest expedition,” Meek said.

According to her, once the entire team gets acclimatized, they will begin skiing with the help of their guide and it will take more than 20 days to cover the 140 miles from a safe zone to reach the South Pole.

“The expedition will inspire a whole new generation of women from our country to take more challenges. Tanvi and Madhavi shall be the face of India in global extreme sports from now,” said Ankita Mitra, Director, KolEevent, a city-based event management agency that is associated with ‘Polar Maidens’.

Seven new events will be included in the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board has said.

The IOC on Wednesday approved the addition of monobob and freestyle ski big air, as well as dynamic mixed team formats including short track mixed relay, a ski jumping mixed team event, mixed team aerials and a snowboard cross mixed team event, Xinhua news agency reported.

“The additions reflect our continued commitment to making the Olympic Games programs more youthful and gender balanced,” said IOC Sports Director Kit McConnell.

A record number of women athletes are expected to participate in the Games, with the female quota being increased from 41 to 45.44 percent.

The forthcoming edition of Australia’s domestic T20 cricket tournament — Big Bash League (BBL) — will witness an increase in the number of matches and duration when it kicks off on December 19 this year, Cricket Australia (CA) announced on Wednesday.

Compared to last year’s 40 matches, the 2018 edition of BBL will see 56 group matches as CA announced a home-and-away format with each of the eight teams playing 14 matches before the knockout stage, a format on which the cash-rich Indian Premier League (IPL) runs.

Meanwhile, new venues have also been announced for the annual domestic competition, which will run for a period of 61 days, 13 days more than the previous edition.

The Metricon Stadium in Gold Coast, which will host its first ever international game when South Africa takes on the hosts in a T20I game on November 17, will be hosting BBL matches for the first time beside serving as the home venue for the Brisbane Heat.

Also, Traeger Park in Alice Springs and the UTAS Stadium in Launceston will be hosting matches in the upcoming edition.

Explaining the reason behind the new formula, BBL Head Kim McConnie said: “The objective of moving the BBL to a full home and away fixture is consistent with Cricket Australia’s strategy of growing the Big Bash and becoming number one for fans across Australia.”

“With more games, in more locations, we believe this is going to be one of the most exciting, action-packed BBL seasons to-date,” he added.

 India’s U-23 men’s team were held to a 1-1 draw by Belgium in their third round robin match of the Five Nations Tournament here.

India had a mixed bag of results in their first two matches of the tournament as they beat Ireland 5-0 in their first match, but lost 1-3 to Great Britain in the second match.

However, a strong performance against the hosts was needed and the Indian forwards did not disappoint as they produced an attacking display in the first two quarters on Tuesday.

The junior team was rewarded for their constant pressure on Belgium when striker Mohammad Umar found space in the striking circle and put the ball into the back of the net at the stroke of half-time.

The third quarter, however, saw the hosts produce a quick reply to India taking the lead, as Syril Frying canceled out the lead in the 34th minute to level the scores.

Both the teams had their chances in the final quarter of the match, but neither could capitalise the chances and the match ended in a draw, which means that India will need to win their last round-robin match against the Netherlands on Friday to have a chance of qualifying for the Final match of the U-23 Five Nations Tournament.

India’s competitors in the BWF World Badminton Championships 2018 in Nanjing, China, have been handed a difficult path in the draw.

Men’s singles fifth seed Kidambi Srikanth has been clubbed in the fourth section which also has Malaysian veteran Lee Chong Wei means they could clash in the quarter-finals.

Srikanth will open against Ireland’s Nhat Nguyen and is likely to meet Indonesia’s Jonatan Christie, the 13th seed, in the third round.

H.S. Prannoy, on the other hand, may face Hong Kong’s Wong Wing Ki Vincent and Chinese Taipei’s Chou Tien Chen after being handed an easy opening round clash against Australia’s Abhinav Manota. In the last eight stage, rising Chinese star Shi Yuqi may be Prannoy’s opponent.

B Sai Praneeth will have to upset South Korean Son Wan Ho, while Sameer Verma meets Frenchman Lucas Corvee in the opening round.

In the women’s singles category, third seed and three-time medallist P.V. Sindhu will open her campaign against the winner between Fitriani Fitriani or Linda Zetchiri. If the Indian wins the match, South Korean ninth Sung Ji Hyun will be a stiff challenge for Sindhu while reigning world champion Nozomi Okuhara is a possible opponent in the quarter-finals for the Hyderabadi.

Sindhu’s senior, Saina Nehwal will play either Swiss Sabrina Jaquet or Turkish Aliye Demirbag in the second round. After this round, she is expected to fight Ratchanok Inthanon of Thailand and Olympic champion Carolina Marin in the next two rounds.

In the men’s doubles, the senior pair of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy will open against Bulgarian combo of Daniel Nikolov and Ivan Rusev, while fast-rising Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty face Olympic bronze medallists Marcus Ellis and Chris Langridge of England.

The women’s doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and N. Sikki Reddy will meet Chinese Taipei’s Chiang Kai Hsin and Hung Shih Han in their first round.

The mixed doubles pair of Ashwini and Satwik will clash with Danish pair of N. Nøhr and S. Thygesen, while Pranaav Jerry Chopra and Sikki will meet Czech combine of Jakub Bitman and Alzbeta Basova.

England put up a strong all-around show to thump an underwhelming India by eight wickets in the series-deciding third and final One-day International (ODI) at the Headingley cricket ground here on Tuesday.

Leg-spinner Adil Rashid’s triple strikes in the middle overs helped England restrict India for a below par 256/8, despite captain Virat Kohli playing a 71-run knock.

Then India’s bowlers could not respond to brilliant batting from Joe Root (100 not out) and Eoin Morgan (88 not out), who shared a 186-run stand for the third wicket as the hosts cantered to a big win, with 5.3 overs to spare.

It was England’s second consecutive win as they bounced back strongly after the first ODI loss in Nottingham before they produced a handsome win at the Lord’s.

For India, it was the second successive occasions in which their bowling and batting were outclassed. After conceding 322 runs before being bowled out for 236 in the second ODI, India made as many as three changes, dropping pacers Umesh Yadav, Siddharth Kaul and batsman Lokesh Rahul in favour of pacers Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Shardul Thakur and batsman Dinesh Karthik. However, despite these changes, the result did not change.

Put in to bat, India rode on captain Kohli’s 71, combined with his predecessor Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s laborious 66-ball 42 and a valuable 44 from opener Shikhar Dhawan even as Rashid applied the brakes to return figures of 3/49 off his 10 overs.

India were in trouble early on, losing in-form opener Rohit Sharma for a sluggish 18-ball 2, before Dhawan and Kohli forged a 71-run second wicket stand to inject life back into the innings.

With the right-left duo of Kohli and Dhawan going all guns blazing, all-rounder Ben Stokes brought the hosts back into the game with the run-out of Dhawan, who by then had faced 49 balls and struck seven fours.

The southpaw’s dismissal brought in Dinesh Karthik for his first game of the tour. Karthik started off well with a boundary before picking two more on his way to a quickfire 22-ball 21 but an inside edge off a tossed up delivery from Rashid ended his stay and also the 41-run third wicket stand.

Despite losing his partners at the other end, Kohli kept his cool to raise his 48th ODI half-century with a boundary off pacer Liam Plunkett and thereafter began switching gears even as Suresh Raina (1) joined him in the middle.

However, Rashid and his fellow spinner Moeen Ali managed to keep the run flow in check, which prompted both the Indian batsmen to take risks and in the process the leggie bamboozled the Indian skipper with a ripper which broke through his defenses before Raina too departed off the same over.

With India in deep trouble, Dhoni once again came to the rescue with a hard-working innings, and together with all-rounder Hardik Pandya (21 off 21 balls), raised a 36-run stand for the sixth wicket before adding another 27 runs with Bhuvneshwar Kumar (21 off 35) to stretch the total to some sort of respectability.

Towards the end, pacer Shardul Thakul produced a brilliant cameo of 13-ball unbeaten 22, that saw him launch Stokes for two sixes in the penultimate over as India’s total crossed the 250-run mark.

For England, besides Rashid’s three wickets, pacer David Willey also returned figures of 3/40 while fellow quick Mark Wood took one wicket.

Chasing a relatively easy target in modern-day one-day cricket, England got off to a flier, thanks to Jonny Bairstow’s quickfire 30 off 13 deliveries.

However, pacer Thakur brought relief for India as Bairstow was caught by Raina.

Root then joined hands with James Vince (30), who was making his first ODI appearance in two years. The partnership was running smoothly for 30 runs until the latter ran for a second but was caught short by a throw from Pandya from midwicket and Dhoni effected a runout.

Root, who roared back to form in the previous ODI with a 113, was joined in the middle by his captain Moragan, who also returned to form with a 53 at Lord’s.

Luck was also on England’s side as right-hander Root was dropped by Dhoni, who dived to his left to pick an edge off a wide delivery from Shardul in the 30th over. Root was batting on 59 then.

Root completed his 13th ODI century with a four towards midwicket off Hardik as it not only gave him the three-figure mark but also sealed England’s win.

Brief Scores: India: 256/8 in 50 overs (Virat Kohli 71, Shikhar Dhawan 44, M.S.Dhoni 42; David Willey 3/40, Adil Rashid 3/49) vs England: (Joe Root 100 not out, Eoin Morgan 88 not out; Shardul Thakur 1/51).

Indian boxing star Vijender Singh on Tuesday hailed athletics’ latest golden girl Hima Das’ performance, saying the Assamese lass should be supported financially from here on and not just eulogized.

Hima created history last week by winning the yellow metal in the women’s 400-metre event at the IAAF World U-20 Championships in Tampere, Finland.

Hima registered a time of 51.46 seconds in the final at the Ratina Stadium to become the first Indian athlete to win gold in a world championship across all age groups.

“She did a great job. It’s amazing,” Vijender told reporters on the sidelines of an interactive session with students of Newtown School here.

“People only congratulate her. But there should be people who will support her financially. She comes from a poor family and she needs financial support,” said the 32-year old Vijender who is now into pro boxing.

Born in a poor family, Hima is the last of five children of a rice-growing farmer in Kandhulimari village about five kilometers from Dhing town of Nagaon district in central Assam.

Since her unprecedented achievement, the 18-year old who wanted to be a football player has become the toast of the nation with India cricket team captain Virat Kohli and batting legend Sachin Tendulkar among the many to have congratulated her.

Talking about his own experience prior to Beijing Olympics where he was the last to qualify from the Asian qualifying tournament in Kazakhstan, Vijender said it doesn’t come easy and thus the toil should be recognised in Hima’s case.

“People had written me off as I made the cut at the last moment. It doesn’t come easy so I feel her effort should not go in waste and she should be supported properly.”

The 32-year-old 2008 Olympic bronze medallist was slated to take on Briton Lee Markham for the Commonwealth Super middleweight title but the latter got injured.

The fight was scheduled for July 13 and would have given Vijender a shot at his third title after having claimed the WBO Asia Pacific and Oriental Super Middleweight titles.

“We are planning to have the fight in September but the dates have not been decided yet,” Vijender informed.

“The opponent was supposed to be Lee Markham but he got injured so the fight got postponed. Now the Commonwealth committee will decide the opponent,” the Manchester-based pugilist added.

Vijender has been victorious in his 10 previous outings while Markham had the experience of 22 fights, 17 of them wins.

The fight would have been Vijender’s first in six months since he successfully defended his twin titles in the clash against Ghana’s Ernest Amuzu in Jaipur.

Asked about whether more boxers should take up pro boxing, Vijender said: “After a certain age, I feel boxers should attempt the pro level. There are boxers who go to Olympics and Asian Games. But what about the rest?”

“They can come to pro boxing. I am not saying the cream should opt for pro boxing, but those who feel they can do well at pro level should come.”

After turning pro Vijender inspired a lot of Indian boxers to take up professional boxing including Commonwealth Games champion Vikas Krishan who has already expressed his desire to turn pro.

Vijender signed off by urging upcoming boxers to be mentally strong as it’s an individual sport and one needs to push himself.

“People should think positive. It depends on the boxers as well since it’s not a team sport.”

Vijender, who turned to pro boxing in 2015, is ranked fourth in the WBO Super Middleweight category.

The Indian hockey team’s silver medal-winning effort at the Champions Trophy in Breda, the Netherlands, earlier this month has propelled them to the fifth spot in the world rankings, released by the International Hockey Federation (FIH) on Tuesday.

India finished runners-up after losing the final to reigning world champions Australia, who meanwhile, consolidated their stay atop the world rankings.

Australia (1906 points) sit 23 points ahead of second-ranked Argentina (1883) and are followed by Belgium (1709) and the Netherlands (1654).

With 1484 points, India has pushed Germany (1456) to sixth from the fifth spot.

Most of the teams in the top 20 are non-movers, although 18th placed Austria and 19th ranked Egypt have climbed ahead of France, who now sit in the 20th position.

The India U-20 national team will be crossing swords with U-20 teams of Argentina, Venezuela and Mauritania when the boys travel to Spain to participate in the COTIF Cup — the Mini Mundial Sub U-20 mens football tournament.

The tournament is slated to kick-off on July 29.

Besides, the U-20 boys will also play Murcia U-20, a local side in the tournament.

Abhishek Yadav, director, national teams said the All India Football Federation (AIFF) has drawn up a template where all national teams will play international competitions in addition to their domestic schedule.

“The COTIF tournament in Spain falls well into our plans and we are excitedly looking forward to it. In the Sub20 category, India will be up against teams from renowned football powerhouses that will be preparing for the FIFA U-20 World Cup 2019 qualifiers,” he said.

“For the development of all national teams across age-groups, we have drawn up a template in which playing matches on a regular basis has been given high weight,” Yadav, also an AIFF Executive Committee member, said.

“In an ideal mix, in addition to domestic matches, we will participate in competitions involving AFC opposition, non-AFC opposition, matches against higher-age teams, in different playing conditions, etc.”

“We are pushing the envelope. We have done this with the U-17 World Cup team and are doing it with the U-16 boys’ national team as well. We will soon extend it to the female national teams and a fresh U-15 boys’ national team,” he stated.

The U-20 national team will comprise boys who represented India in the FIFA U-17 World Cup India 2017 and boys who represented India in the AFC U-19 Qualifiers in 2017.