Flashback 2024: Dommaraju Gukesh is our Indian sportsperson of the year

In a country where cricket is religion — as the cliché goes — any major achievement in that sport is usually accorded the maximum hype. The year 2024 is significant, then, for seeing the Men in Blue end an 11-year wait for an ICC trophy. But in retrospect, it had been a rollercoaster ride for the national cricket team as well, this year.

They suffered a whitewash to lose their first home Test series in 12 years —and from all accounts, will fail to make the World Test Championship (WTC) final this time.

At an individual level, pace ace Jasprit Bumrah has excelled — certainly doing enough to be entered into the running for our Indian Sportsperson of the Year — but this is where he comes up against a number of other stellar performers in a bunch of different disciplines: double Olympic medallist Manu Bhaker, javelin ace Neeraj Chopra, wrestling's Vinesh Phogat and, of course, Dommaraju Gukesh.

No prizes for guessing our vote goes to the 18-year-old from Chennai who became the youngest world champion in classical chess after pipping title-holder Ding Liren in a World Championship thriller which went the distance — we did give it away in the headline.

It’s common knowledge now, after all that, that Gukesh is only the second world champion from India after the legendary Vishy Anand and the youngest after the iconic Garry Kasparov, who won the title at 22 years.

The debate over chess is an ongoing battle

The magnitude of the achievement will still take some time to sink in, though truth be told, the Indian sports media has risen to the occasion for once, with sweeping coverage of the triumph.

There is still many a doubter, though, who questions whether chess can be actually considered a ‘sport’ in the sense an Olympic discipline such as football or volleyball is — or is it more logical to consider it an avatar of an e-sport?

The Chess Olympiad is conducted separately too, even as the board game made its way back into the Hangzhou Asian Games of 2023 after a 13-year hiatus.

This is not the occasion for that debate, though, but the time to celebrate the success of Gukesh — who has, in a way, personified the domination of Indians at the global stage of the sport through the year. Remember, it was only at the end of 2023 that he narrowly qualified for the FIDE Candidates tournament — much after R. Praggnanandhaa and Vidit Gujrathi did — but stunned all by winning the tournament and securing the right to face defending champion Ding Liren.

Between his Candidates and his world championship title wins, Gukesh played a key role in India winning their first-ever gold medal in the Chess Olympiad. The youngest world champion also won an individual gold medal on Board 1, even as the Olympiad in Budapest heralded the finest hour for Indian chess, with the women’s team also winning the gold medal to make it a ‘double’.

Just when one thought that Gukesh’s world title was the jewel in the crown for Indian chess this year, chess mom Koneru Humpy too surprised us all — including herself — with her second World Rapid Chess crown in New York on Sunday, 29 December 2024.

Anand’s legacy

It is often said that a country needs achievers on the global stage to popularise a game and draw more children to start playing it — much as Anand played Pied Piper for us the last three decades and Humpy hopes to do as well.

Now, Vishy Anand’s baton at least has passed to Gukesh, who must create a new legacy. His advantage is that, unlike his mentor, he will not have to plough a lonely furrow, with a batch of gifted peers for company.

“I may have become the world champion, but this does not mean I have become the best player in the world. For me, that’s Magnus Carlsen and I will have to improve in some areas to be there,” Gukesh said after the title. Topping his agenda will be sharpening his game for the Rapid and Blitz formats, in which Anand holds multiple world titles.

Speaking to the National Herald, Dibyendu Barua, the country’s second grandmaster after Anand said: “Gukesh’s world title, along with the double gold at Olympiad, was the highlight of a golden year for Indian chess. Now that the title has come to him so early in life, the onus will be on him to stay at the top.”  

 Our other nominees

Manu Bhaker 

This 22-year-old was the star of the show for India at the Paris Olympics, as she became the first female shooter to win an Olympic medal for this nation, winning bronze in the women’s 10m air pistol event.

Later, she claimed another bronze at the team 10m air pistol event with Sarabjot Singh, and became the first Indian since Independence to win multiple medals in the same edition of the Games.

She almost landed a third medal too — but narrowly missed out with a heartbreaking fourth-place finish in the women’s 25m air pistol event.

Neeraj Chopra 

It’s Neeraj Chopra’s phenomenal consistency over the last six-odd years that has raised the Indian sports fans’ expectations for another golden show in Paris.

Despite a poor final, where he got only one correct throw out of six, the effort of 89.45 metres was enough to ensure him a silver.

After battling against the pain barrier throughout the year, Chopra has taken fresh guard, appointing his childhood idol Jan Jelezny as his mentor for next season. The obvious target for him will be to remain injury-free and zero in on the elusive 90 metres mark.

Jasprit Bumrah 

After a comeback from injury in 2023, Jasprit Bumrah has looked unstoppable in 2024 across all formats — emerging as the highest wicket-taker with 77 scalps in international cricket across all formats.

He has 62 wickets in 12 matches, a key factor behind the team’s home series victory over England and a famous 295-run win against Australia in the Perth Test under his captaincy. The 31-year-old has also ended the year by becoming the first Indian fast bowler in history to attain 900 ICC rating points in Test cricket.

At the 2024 T20 World Cup, Bumrah won the Player of the Tournament award with 15 wickets in eight matches at an incredible economy of 4.17. He won the Player of the Match (POTM) in two matches, including the blockbuster clash against arch rivals Pakistan.

Jasprit Bumrah was also on Tuesday, 31 December, recognised for his splendid performances in the Border–Gavaskar Trophy as Cricket Australia named the Indian pace spearhead as captain of its ‘Test team of the year’, which also features Yashasvi Jaiswal. 

Vinesh Phogat

The Vinesh Phogat saga of the 2024 Paris Olympics will continue to haunt the wrestler and the Indian sports fan for a long, long time.

Sure, it takes us into the realm of ifs and buts to talk of whether she could have given the country a seventh medal in Paris in the women’s 50m freestyle final after being disqualified for being 100 grams overweight — but then she was a winner even without a podium finish.

It was not easy to return to the mat after fighting a corrupt raj in her discipline for months on end, dragged in the streets literally as well as in the media — not to speak of having to move to an (uncomfortable) lower weight category. This is where one has to doff the hat to the Haryanvi wrestler who has since gone on to hang up her gloves and donned a Gandhi topi as a Congress leader.