2025 World Junior Badminton Championships

♦ India will host the 2025 World Junior Badminton Championships at the National Centre of Excellence in Guwahati.

♦ The Badminton World Federation (BWF) said this on 30 April 2024.

♦ It will be the first time since 2008 that the BWF event will be held in India. India last hosted the event in Pune.

Archery World Cup

India's trio of Dhiraj Bommadevara, Tarundeep Rai and Pravin Jadhav won the men’s recurve team gold at the Archery World Cup Stage 1. They defeated reigning Olympic champions South Korea in the final in Shanghai on 28 April 2024. It is India’s first gold medal in the team event of a World Cup in 14 years. The last win, also in Shanghai, was achieved in 2010 by Rahul Banerjee, Jayanta Talukdar and Tarundeep Rai.
 

Jyothi Surekha

Jyothi Surekha Vennam won three gold medals in the 2023 Asian Games in Shanghai on 27 April 2024. She bagged gold in the women’s individual, mixed event partnering Abhishek Verma and the women’s team gold with Aditi Swami and Parneet Kaur. 
 

Former wrestler Narsingh Pancham Yadav

♦ Former wrestler Narsingh Pancham Yadav was elected Chairman of the Wrestling Federation of India's (WFI) Athletes' Commission.

♦ He won the gold medal at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in the men's freestyle 74 kg category.

♦ Narsingh also won a bronze medal in the 2014 Asian Games while his last international event was the 2021 Asian Championships where he finished with a bronze in the 79kg.

♦ The other elected members of the Athletes Commission are Sahil (Delhi), Smitha AS (Kerala), Bharti Bhaghei (UP), Khushboo S Pawar (Gujarat), Nikki (Haryana), and Sweta Dubey (Bengal).

Max Verstappen

♦ Max Verstappen won Formula One’s first Chinese Grand Prix on 21 April 2024.

♦ This is his fourth victory in five races this season and his 23rd in the last 27 extending through last season.

Deepanshu Sharma

♦ Deepanshu Sharma won a gold medal in the men’s javelin throw at the Asian under-20 athletics championships in Dubai on 24 April 2024.

♦ Deepanshu threw a distance of 70.29m.

♦ Rohan Yadav clinched a silver medal. He threw a distance of 70.03m.

♦ Priyanshu won a silver medal in the men’s 1500m after clicking 3:50.85.

♦ India won another silver, through Ritik (52.23m) in the men’s discus throw.

♦ The 21st Asian U20 Athletics Championships is being held in Dubai from April 24 to 27.

Sreeja Akula

♦ Sreeja Akula became the top-ranked Indian woman table tennis player after getting a career-high rank of 38 in the latest ITTF Chart released on 23 April 2024. She replaced Manika Batra. Manika ranked 39 in the latest update. 
♦ Sreeja won the WTT Feeder Corpus Christi and WTT Feeder Beirut titles in 2024, January and March respectively. Sreeja had won the mixed doubles gold medal at the 2022 CWG alongside veteran Sharath Kamal.
♦ Yashaswini Ghorpade and Archana Kamath held on to their 99th and 100th spot in the rankings.
♦ Sharath continues to be the top-ranked male player, occupying the 37 spot in the rankings while G Sathiyan and Manav Thakar have interchanged places to be 60th and 61st respectively. National champion Harmeet Desai’s, who was the top ranked Indian a couple of months a ago, descent continues as he dropped to the 64th spot.

Novak Djokovic

♦ Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic received Laureus World Sportsman of the Year for a record-equalling fifth time. He won in 2012, 2015, 2016 and 2019. The award ceremony was held in Madrid, Spain. Spain’s World Cup-winning midfielder Aitana Bonmati was named the Sportswoman of the Year. 
♦ Winners List:
♦ World Sportswoman of the Year: Aitana Bonmati
♦ World Sportsman of the Year: Novak Djokovic
♦ World Team of the Year: Spain Women’s Football Team
♦ World Breakthrough of the Year: Jude Bellingham
♦ World Comeback of the Year: Simone Biles
♦ World Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability: Diede de Groot
♦ World Action Sportsperson of the Year: Arisa Trew
♦ Laureus Sport for Good: Rafa Nadal Foundation

T20 Cricket World Cup 2024

♦ Karnataka milk brand Nandini has announced its sponsorship of the Scotland and Ireland teams for the upcoming T20 Cricket World Cup. Nandini is an associate sponsor of the Bengaluru Bulls team in the Pro Kabaddi League.
♦ The Nandini logo will be featured prominently on the lead arm (on the right arm for the left-handed batsmen and on the left for the right-handed) of the batsmen’s jerseys. The T20 Cricket World Cup 2024 will be co-hosted by the West Indies and the US between June 1 and 29.

FIDE Candidates tournament

♦ D Gukesh (17) became the youngest winner of the FIDE Candidates tournament in Toronto on 22 April 2024.

♦ He breaks former world champion Garry Kasparov’s record (20 years, 11 months) by over three years, and became the only Indian other than his mentor Viswanathan Anand to win the Candidates.

♦ He will face Ding Liren later this year in the biggest match of his young life. The World Championship clash will be the first time in a decade that an Indian will be in a fight for the world title since Anand at Sochi in 2014. 

Mumbai Indians opener Rohit Sharma

♦ Mumbai Indians opener Rohit Sharma became the second player in the history of the Indian Premier League to appear in 250 matches. He has been part of the IPL since 2008 when he started with the now-defunct team, Deccan Chargers. Since 2011, he has been with Mumbai Indians. MS Dhoni has played 256 IPL matches with Chennai Super Kings and the now-defunct franchise Rising Pune Supergiants.
♦ Dinesh Karthik became the third player to appear in 250 matches in the IPL. Currently, he is the Royal Challengers Bengaluru wicketkeeper. Karthik has played for six IPL teams in total. He started his IPL career with Delhi Daredevils in 2008 and then has been part of Kings XI Punjab, Mumbai Indians, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, Gujarat Lions and Kolkata Knight Riders. 

Swedens Mondo Duplantis

♦ Sweden’s Mondo Duplantis (24) broke the men’s pole vault world record with a 6.24-meter effort in the Diamond League season-opening meet in Xiamen, China on 20 April 2024. It was the eighth time Duplantis broke the world record, and he was the only man to clear six meters at the Egret Stadium. 
♦ Sam Kendricks placed second at 5.82-meter, followed by Huang Bokai at 5.72-meter.

Lithuanian Mykolas Alekna

♦ Lithuanian Mykolas Alekna (21) broke the world record in the men’s discus. He threw the four-pound discus 74.35 meters (nearly 244 feet) in Ramona, Oklahoma on 15 April 2024.

♦ German Jürgen Schult set the previous world record of 74.08 meters in June 1986.

♦ Alekna is the son of 2000 and 2004 Olympic discus champion Virgilijus Alekna, who was bumped to third on the all-time list with a personal best of 73.88 meters.

♦ In 2022, Alekna became the first teenage man to win a throwing medal in world championships history with a silver, according to Bill Mallon of the OlyMADMen. Alekna took bronze at 2023 Worlds.
 

2024 Olympics

♦ World Athletics (WA) announced a reward of USD 50,000 (Rs.41,59,865) to Gold medalists at the upcoming 2024 Olympics in Paris on 10 November 2024. World Athletics will become the first international federation to award prize money at an Olympic Games.  

♦ Out of the 2.4 million dollars enclosed price World Athletics receives from the international Olympic committee every four years a share has been allocated to champions in each of 48 athletic competitions at the event and Relay teams will share the winners’ prize pot.

♦ It will be extended to Olympic silver and bronze medal winners in Los Angeles in 2028.
 

Japanese Grand Prix

♦ Triple world champion Max Verstappen won the title at the Japanese Grand Prix on 7 April 2024. He finished 12.535sec ahead of the Mexican Perez. This is Verstappen's third win from the first four races of the 2024 season. 

♦ Currently, Verstappen has 57 career wins, pushed his season points total to 77 and is 13 clear of Perez on 64. Ferrari's Charles Leclerc follows with 59 with Sainz on 55.

Sumit Nagal

India's men's tennis player Sumit Nagal qualified for the Monte Carlo Masters on 7 April 2024. He defeated Argentina’s Facundo Diaz Acosta in the final qualifying round. Nagal became the first Indian to enter the Monte Carlo Masters singles main draw in 42 years. Currently, he is ranked 95 in the world ATP rankings. 
 

Tharun Mannepalli

♦ Indian shuttler Tharun Mannepalli (22) emerged as champion in the men’s singles competition at the Kazakhstan International Challenge tournament in Uralsk on 6 April 2024. He defeated eighth-seeded Malaysian Soong Joo Ven in the final. This is Tharun's first International title.

♦ In the women’s singles Anupama Upadhyaya (19) defeated fellow Indian Harshitaa Rout in the final. This is her second successive international title. Anupama won the Polish International challenge in March 2024.