January 2012 Sports News

January 2012 National and International Sports News

Athletics
In athletics championship held at Mumbai Marathon, 2012 the overall men's title was won by Laban Moiben from Kenya. The overall women's event was won by another African Netsanet Abeyo from Ethiopia. Indian men's championship was won by Ram Singh Yadav and Indian women's title was won by Lalita Babar.

Badminton

In the badminton national championship Sourabh Varma defeated B. Sai Praneeth in straight sets and won the men's title. The women's singles was won by P.V. Sindhu with a slight margin defeating Neha Pandit.

Cricket

In the reputed national cricket event Ranji Trophy, the Rajasthan team defeated Tamil Nadu to lift the trophy in the finals. In another cricket match, team Mumbai beat Maharashtra by 23 runs in the final to lift under 19 Cooch Behar Trophy. During this season, India Australia test series was also going on and the fourth and final test was won by Australia by 298 runs. This match was played at Adelaide and the name of the trophy was Border Gavaskar trophy.

This was India's seventh successive test defeat overseas under the captaincy of M S Dhoni and it was India's worst performance after 1968. Prior to this India was defeated by Australia by an innings in the previous two tests and it was seventh consecutive humiliating test cricket defeat for Indian team overseas. In another test series between Pakistan and England, left arm spinner Abdul Rehman performed his best at six for 25, which lead to a second consecutive victory over England in the second test in the UAE. In a test series that was held between South Africa and Srilanka, Jacques Kallis helped South Africa to win the third and final test at Cape Town; it lead to a series victory of South Africa by 2-1. Pakistan defeated England in the third test too and captured the entire series by 3-0.

Football

In January 2012, "the World Player of the Year Award" was won by footballer Lionel Messi of Argentina. The Barcelona forward Messi received this award for the consecutive third time. In international football, Zambia managed to defeat Ivory Coast in the finals to win its maiden Africa Cup of Nations title.

Table Tennis

In table tennis senior national championship A. Amalraj of Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB) got his first ever national title in the men's category. The women's TT title was won by Poulami Ghatak.

Tennis

In the Australian open tennis championship 2012, Rafael Nadal was defeated by Novak Djokovic, and Djokovic lifted his third Australian open men's singles trophy. This match was so interesting that it was considered as the longest match in the history of Australian open tennis championship. It stretched up to five hours and 15 minutes. Victoria Azarenka from Belorussia won the women's singles title; she defeated Russia's Maria Sharapova in the finals.

Leander Paes and Czech Republic's Radek Stepanek together defeated Bob and Mike Bryan in the men's doubles final. It was Leander's maiden doubles Grand Slam title. Russians Svetlana Kuznetsova and Vera Zvonareva won the women's doubles title by defeating their Italian counterparts. In the Hopman cup, Wimbledon champions from Czechoslovakia Petra Kvitova and Tomas Berdych defeated their French counterparts to win the singles titles.

Archery

In the senior National Archery Championship held at Jamshedpur, Steel Plant Sports Board (SPSB) emerged as overall champion and won most of the competitions. Their star performers Deepika Kumari and Pawan Xalxo bagged the gold. The gold medal in the men's category went to Rajat Chauhan of Rajasthan and V. Jyothi Surekha from Andhra Pradesh in the women's category. Punjab archers stole the show as the women archers from Punjab clinched victories in recurve round.

T20 Cricket

In the Australia-India T20 cricket series, Australia won the first T20 International. This followed the humiliating 0-4 defeat of India in the test series. But in the second T20 match was won by India. This was the first overseas victory for India in seven months.

Hockey

Good news came for Indian hockey when they qualified for London Olympics by defeating France 8-1.

Last Updated on 7/9/2012