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.